Theme: Gender equality, youth and social inclusion
Gender and other social differences such as age, wealth and ethnicity, have an enormous influence upon the success of agricultural interventions. To ensure equitable impacts and benefits to rural people, CIMMYT emphasizes inclusive research and development interventions. Starting with the collection of data on gender and social differences, efforts are underway to address these gaps and ensure equitable adoption of technologies and practice. This includes working towards gender-equitable control of productive assets and resources; technologies that reduce women’s labor; and improved capacity of women and youth to participate in decision-making.
The Government of Ethiopia recently announced an ambitious goal to reach wheat self-sufficiency by 2022, eliminating expensive wheat imports and increasing food security.
However, a new report based on a four-year research project on gender and productivity in Ethiopia’s wheat sector indicates that a lack of technical gender research capacity, a shortage of gender researchers and low implementation of gender-focused policies is hampering these efforts. Read more here.
CIMMYT scientist Gemma Molero speaks at the 9th International Wheat Congress in Sydney, Australia, in 2015. (Photo: Julie Mollins/CIMMYT)
“We need to encourage and support girls and women to achieve their full potential as scientific researchers and innovators,” says UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. And he is right. Bridging the gender gap in science is central to achieving sustainable development goals and fulfilling the promises of the 2030 Agenda.
Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. While in recent years the global community has increased its efforts to engage women and girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), they remain staggeringly underrepresented in these fields. According to UNESCO, less than 30 percent of the world’s researchers are women, and only one in three female students in higher education selects STEM subjects.
“Science is male-dominated,” agrees CIMMYT wheat physiologist Gemma Molero. “It’s challenging being a woman and being young — conditions over which we have no control but which can somehow blind peers to our scientific knowledge and capacity.”
Samjhana Khanal surveys heat-tolerant maize varieties in Ludhiana, India, during a field day at the 13th Asian Maize Conference. (Photo: Manjit Singh/Punjab Agricultural University)
Investing in the science education for women and girls is a key part of changing this reality. Samjhana Khanal, a Nepali agricultural graduate, social entrepreneur and recipient of a 2018 MAIZE-Asia Youth Innovator Award testifies to this. She cites support from her family as a driving factor in allowing her to pursue her education, particularly her mother, who “despite having no education, not being able to read or write a single word, dreamed of having a scientist daughter.”
Enhancing the visibility of established female scientists who can serve as role models for younger generations is equally important.
“One of the most important factors that register subconsciously when undergraduates consider careers is what the person at the front of the room looks like,” claims the Association for Women in Science, “and women and underrepresented minorities visibly perceive their low numbers in fields like engineering and physical sciences.”
Visiting researcher Fazleen Abdul Fatah is studying the the growing importance of maize and wheat in emerging economies.
Fazleen Abdul Fatah is a senior lecturer in agricultural economics, trade and policy at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UITM), Malaysia, who recently spent three months as a visiting researcher based at CIMMYT’s global headquarters in Mexico. She acknowledges the importance of raising the visibility of minority female scientists who can serve as role models for young girls by demonstrating that careers in STEM are attainable.
“I had an amazing professor during my undergraduate degree who really inspired me to move forward in the field,” says Abdul Fatah. “She was a wonderful example of how to do great maths, lead successful national and international projects, work in the STEM field, and be a mom.”
With support from CIMMYT, Molero, Khanal and Abdul Fatah are helping pave the way for the next generation of female scientists. Whether working on crop physiology, nutrient management or food consumption patterns, their careers serve as an inspiration for young and early career researchers around the world.
Nominations are now open for the 2019 MAIZE Youth Innovators Awards – Africa! These awards are part of the efforts that the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) is undertaking to promote youth participation in maize-based agri-food systems. These awards recognize the contributions of young women and men below 35 years of age who are implementing innovations in African maize-based agri-food systems, including research for development, seed systems, agribusiness, and sustainable intensification.
Young people are the key to ensuring a food-secure future and agricultural sustainability. However, rural youth face many challenges related to unemployment, underemployment and poverty. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, facilitating young people’s participation in agriculture has the potential to drive widespread rural poverty reduction among young people and adults alike. In Africa, where over 300 million smallholder-farming families grow and consume maize as a staple crop, the human population stands at 1.2 billion people, 60 percent of whom are below the age of 25.
The MAIZE Youth Innovators Awards aim to identify young innovators who can serve to inspire other young people to get involved in maize-based agri-food systems. Part of the vision is to create a global network of young innovators in maize-based systems from around the world.
Award recipients will be invited to attend the annual Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) project meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, from May 7 to May 9, where they will receive their awards and will be given the opportunity to present their work. The project meeting and award ceremony will also allow these young innovators to network and exchange experiences with MAIZE researchers and partners. Award recipients may also get the opportunity to collaborate with MAIZE and its partner scientists in Africa on implementing or furthering their innovations.
MAIZE invites young innovators to apply and CGIAR researchers and partners to nominate eligible applicants for any of the following three categories:
Researcher: Maize research for development (in any discipline)
Farmer: Maize farming systems in Africa
Change agent: Maize value chains (i.e., extension agents, input and service suppliers, transformation agents, etc.)
We ask nominators/applicants to take into account the following criteria and related questions:
Novelty and innovative spirit: To which specific novel findings or innovation(s) has this young person contributed? (in any of the three categories mentioned above)
Present or potential impact: What is the present or potential benefit or impact of the innovation(s) in maize-based agri-food systems?
Applications should be submitted online through this form by March 15, 2019.
Key dates:
Opening date for nominations: January 21, 2019
Closing date for nominations: March 15, 2019 (Please note: Nominations received after the closing date will not be considered)
Notification of winners: March 22, 2019
Information documents:
A PDF version of this Call for Nominees is available here.
Nomination/Application Guidelines can be found here.
The Application Form can be found here and is also available on the MAIZE and YPARD websites.
Kristie Drucza (left) and Rahma Adam (right) had a chance to share CIMMYT’s gender work with the former president of Mauritius, Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, at AWARD’s tenth anniversary event in Nairobi. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center’s (CIMMYT) gender team joined African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) to celebrate its ten years of empowering women with essential skills and knowledge.
The AWARD program advocates for a more gender-responsive agricultural research ecosystem. This is key in driving a more sustainable and inclusive agricultural growth in Africa.
The tenth anniversary event took place in Nairobi on November 29, 2018. Rahma Adam, Gender and Development Scientist, and Kristie Drucza, Gender and Social Inclusion Researcher, showcased the work that CIMMYT’s gender team has done on maize and wheat-based farming systems, not just in Africa, but globally.
“Our participation at AWARD’s anniversary celebrations was not an end in itself, but rather relevant for other organizations within and outside the CGIAR system to learn from CIMMYT’s gender strategic and inclusive research work and draw lessons from it,” Adam said. “We especially appreciate the work done by AWARD, including the leadership trainings offered to promising young women at academic and research institutions, and at international organizations across Africa and beyond.”
Several researchers at CIMMYT have participated in AWARD’s initiatives, both getting mentorship or training and mentoring fellow scientists, thereby nurturing the next crop of researchers and leaders in agriculture.
“These courses are useful in helping one to strike a balance between being a good researcher and a good leader at the workplace and beyond,” Adam said.
Drucza commented on the leadership training she participated in: “They provide opportunities for leaders (some of whom are heads of research institutes across Africa) to understand common leadership challenges women face, engage in thought-provoking conversations and create lasting networks, among other issues.”
CIMMYT researchers Kristie Drucza (left) and Rahma Adam (second from left) showcased CIMMYT’s gender work at AWARD’s tenth anniversary event in Nairobi. (Photo: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
In 2018, Drucza, mentored a gender unit director at the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR). “As part of the AWARD program, my mentee attended a leadership development course as well as a scientific writing course. This improved her confidence and skills as a researcher and leader,” Drucza said.
As a beneficiary of the AWARD mentorship program in 2014-2015, Pauline Muindi, a research associate at CIMMYT’s gender unit, honed her communication and public speaking skills, which have proved useful for her work.
“These skills have enabled me to train several seed companies in eastern and southern Africa on the integration of gender in the seed value chains as well as gender integration in the workplace,” she said. Her mentor was a previous AWARD fellow. The program also helped her set realistic yet attainable goals for her career growth. “At CIMMYT, I have an opportunity to learn and gain new experiences, while at the same time build sustainable networks that are important in my professional life.”
The keynote speaker was Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, former president of Mauritius. “Women have a special power to be advocates for themselves and each other. We must become aware of that power and unleash it. Ultimately, it will be for we women to open the doors so that others may live and prosper,” Gurib-Fakim concluded.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CIMMYT) — Clear and consistent communication is important in any work, and no less so when you are collaborating to improve farmer livelihoods. CIMMYT and partners in South Asia are therefore facilitating Farm Economic Analysis workshops to ensure that stakeholders from a variety of professions are on the same page when it comes to the terminology of agricultural economics. Fay Rola-Rubzen and Roy Murray-Prior from the University of Western Australia presented the first full day workshop at the National Agricultural Research Council (NARC) campus in Kathmandu on November 1, 2018. Deepak Bhandari and Yuga Nath Ghimire of NARC officiated the event. More than thirty participants from CIMMYT, the Department of Agriculture and NARC attended the training, which included agronomists, agricultural economists, extension officers and research associates.
The workshop series is part of CIMMYT’s Sustainable and Resilient Farming Systems Intensification (SRFSI) project, which aims to reduce poverty in the Eastern Gangetic Plains of Nepal, India and Bangladesh by making smallholder agriculture more productive, profitable and sustainable while safeguarding the environment and involving women.
Murray-Prior and Rola-Rubzen pose for a group photo with SRFSI training participants in Kathmandu, Nepal.
“The main objective [of the workshops] is to make sure we have the same language and understanding of what we are measuring,” said Rola-Rubzen. “When we go to the field, usually, it may not be the economists gathering the data. It is critical for both economists and non-economists to understand what we are talking about so that we are comparing apples with apples, not apples with oranges.”
Rola-Rubzen and Murray-Prior facilitated a highly specific and tailored training, including engaging the participants in the practical analysis of data collected by SRFSI in the Sunsari district in the eastern Terai of Nepal. Topics covered in the training included gross margin, net revenue and sensitivity analyses, as well as matching analyses to data types.
The workshop was well-received by participants, and will also be conducted in India and Bangladesh to ensure further consistency in communication and to facilitate the cross-country analysis and comparison of data “When we work with economists, it will be easier to understand how they are analyzing their data and making their arguments,” said Sofina Maharjan, assistant research associate for the SRFSI project.
This month’s report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change highlights worsening food shortages as one of the key impacts of global warming.
Tackling the monumental challenges set out in the report may seem like a mountain to climb, given the policy changes and rapid government action required. Yet, on her 4-acre farm on the foothills of Mount Kenya in Embu county, 65-year-old Purity Gachanga proves it is possible to fight eroding soils, enrich farmland, and increase and diversify food production.
What’s more, she shares her methods with 60 women making up a “merry-go-round” group that meet regularly in her front garden. They each contribute a small sum of money which forms their communal savings system. “Many have put the money towards their farms but we also use it for other things we want like blankets, utensils or chairs,” explains Gachanga.
The group also helps the women share new methods, she adds. “I have learnt many techniques from scientists during training days and I am always one of the first to try these out on my farm. So when we get together for the merry-go-round meetings, I show the others what I am doing and how well it works. They then want to try on their own farms.”
Gachanga points to neat rows of fodder plants on the edges of her farm. “Before I would lose all this topsoil when it rained heavily. I learnt that planting certain varieties of fodder plants with deep roots holds the soil together. The plants also add fertility to the soil and give me good feed for my goats.”
Her goats are very precious as besides providing milk and meat, they helped her pay the school fees for nine of her children. The animals are an essential part of her sustainable farming system as they provide fertilizer for her fields.
The farm is flourishing with beans, kale, amaranth, tomatoes and pumpkins. Gachanga rotates the crops so the soil is never left exposed. “I get a profit from each patch so it makes sense to plan how to use it. I make money, keep my soil and animals in good health and we have a varied diet ourselves.”
The training she has received is part of an initiative called the Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA), whose goal is to scale up proven soil conservation and food production techniques. Its demonstration sessions bring researchers, extension agents, the private sector, and farmers together to discuss and share expertise, and Gachanga is a keen learner.
Richer soils, more food
Continual farming and mono-cropping of maize along with minimal fertilizer and manure use has rapidly depleted African soil nutrients and resulting yields. Farmers are also used to feeding their livestock with crop remnants from their fields which leaves the soils exposed, further worsening erosion and soil fertility. To address this, farmers are encouraged to leave either all or some crop residues on the field and add nitrogen-fixing legume crops in rotations with cereal crops and forages.
SIMLESA is on target to achieve its overall goal of reaching 650,000 farmers and increasing farm productivity in Eastern and Southern Africa by 30 percent by 2023.
Rahma Adam, gender specialist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) which is leading SIMLESA, said rural women can access better opportunities by being part of a farming innovation group.
The Liganwa women farmers group in Siaya County in Kenya’s Nyanza Province, started in 2007 to help widows in the community get capital to start micro-businesses, and also uses the rotating ‘merry-go-round’ credit and savings system.
After initial challenges in raising capital, as some members were unable to pay their contribution, they joined SIMLESA as part of an agriculture innovation platform. “By experimenting with the demonstrated conservation agriculture techniques, the Liganwa women have since transformed their farming and incomes,” says Adams.
The platform has also enabled women as a group to negotiate better prices to buy inputs and sell produce. Better yields and markets mean members bring money to the group from the surplus maize they sell. So, the merry-go-round now turns with 3 to 5 times more borrowing capacity and 100 percent repayment rates.
One priority of the United Nations’ International Day of Rural Women on October 15 each year is to foster women’s empowerment through climate-resilient agriculture, as with Gachanga and the merry-go-round farmers groups. The challenge is making sure governments put policies and systems in place to ensure other farmers can, and want to, follow suit.
This article was originally published by Thomson Reuters Foundation here.
Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA) is an eight-year food security program supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
Launched in 2010, SIMLESA is managed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and implemented by national agricultural research systems in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. In Kenya, CIMMYT is working closely with the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO).
How do gender norms, agency and agricultural innovation interlink? How can we research this question comparatively to better understand patterns without overlooking the specificities of different contexts and the people who occupy them? These questions set the stage for the new special issue in the Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security (Agri-Gender) on the GENNOVATE research initiative.
Ahead of the International Day of Rural Women (October 15), researchers from across CGIAR drew on the voices of over 7,000 rural women and men across diverse regional contexts to demonstrate why understanding and addressing gender norms is critical for achieving sustainable and equitable development.
Gender norms comprise the social rules that differentiate what a society considers a man and a woman should be in their lives. The papers published in the GENNOVATE special issue provide new empirical and methodological contributions to the literature on gender, agricultural innovation and rural transformation. The testimonies gathered across 137 communities in 26 countries illuminate how agricultural innovation processes are regularly constrained by gender norms. These norms prescribe women’s deference to men’s authority and in turn assign women with heavy household and care work burdens. They also limit their access to resources, physical mobility and social interactions.
Challenging the norms
Women in Nepal participate in a focus group discussion as part of GENNOVATE’s field research (Photo: Anuprita Shukla)
Nevertheless, women and men find ways to challenge and redefine these norms, and village practices are often different from normative expectations. In a large majority of GENNOVATE research communities, women influence important household decisions and innovate in their rural livelihood activities, albeit often close to their homesteads and on a smaller scale than rural men. Some gender norms are beginning to relax to accommodate women’s and men’s changing lives, but these processes vary greatly across the types of norms, the groups of people concerned — young or unmarried women, widows, resource-constrained women, etc. — and the places where they live. By and large, women continue to face a myriad of barriers trying to expand their economic initiatives.
Two of the papers in the special issue explore gender norms in circumstances where farmer innovation and community development are particularly prevalent. CIMMYT researcher Lone Badstue and co-authors present findings from 336 semi-structured interviews with rural women and men from 19 countries who are known in their villages for agricultural innovation. While finance and physical assets emerge as important enablers of innovation, the testimonies stress that factors related to personality and agency are key drivers for both women’s and men’s capacity to innovate. Compared to men, women innovators are far more likely to detail how supportive spouses, parents, siblings, in-laws or children can help them learn about and adopt new farming techniques or otherwise actively innovate in their rural livelihoods.
Men in Kenya participate in a focus group discussion as part of GENNOVATE’s field research (Photo: Renee Bullock/IITA)
In another paper focused on 79 community case studies, Patti Petesch and co-authors focus on a small set of “transforming” villages, where participants in the GENNOVATE study widely reported accelerated processes of empowerment and poverty reduction in their communities. Case studies and comparative evidence are able to show that more equitable gender norms play a crucial role in catalyzing inclusive agricultural innovation and development processes.
Other papers in the issue emphasize concerns over innovation processes that reinforce gender inequality and marginalize specific social groups. For example, Marlène Elias and co-authors focus on rural youth in seven countries to demonstrate how norms that discriminate against women in agriculture are key for understanding young women’s limited aspirations in agricultural work. Petesch and co-authors also introduce the concept of local normative climate to shed light on the contextual and fluid ways in which norms operate, such as why in one community only men perceive their village to be an enabling climate for their agency and agricultural innovation, while in another community only women perceive this.
Women in Ethiopia participate in a focus group discussion as part of GENNOVATE’s field research (Photo: Mahelet Hailemariam)
A large-scale endeavor
Two papers describe GENNOVATE’s methodology and conceptual framework. The authors reflect on the challenges and opportunities faced in carrying out the large-scale qualitative study. They highlight the need to be attentive to the complexities of various local social contexts and women’s and men’s own understanding of their lives, while looking for patterns to make broader claims that can contribute to agricultural research and development. They also discuss GENNOVATE’s research protocols for sampling, data collection and analysis, and reflect on challenges that correspond with their application.
The GENNOVATE papers make evident that gender norms set the stage for agricultural innovation and that some people and places find pathways to forge ahead far faster than others. The special issue makes an important contribution to the development of strategies that are meaningfully informed by social realities while also allowing for comparisons across various contexts. This insight is relevant to research and development beyond the field of agriculture and natural resource management.
In wheat systems throughout South Asia, the gender myth that “wheat is a man’s crop” is still pervasive. To debunk this myth, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is combatting stereotypical norms of women in agriculture through GENNOVATE, a project carried out by 11 CGIAR Research Programs. Led by CIMMYT, this global comparative research initiative strives to address the questions of how gender norms influence men, women and youth to adopt innovative practices and technologies in agriculture and natural resource management.
Surprisingly, there was little knowledge and little literature on the intersection of wheat farming and gender before 2013. What was peculiar about the narrative of women wheat farmers in South Asia was that they were described — by rural advisory services, research organizations and even farmers themselves — as if they had never set foot in a field. On the ground, however, the local reality has long been different. Women, typically from particular castes and income groups, are involved in field operations.
South Asia is experiencing a rise in innovative undertakings by women in agriculture. This change, fueled by strong male outmigration in some locations, has been promoted by equality narratives created through social and women’s movements, NGOs and education. They have all contributed to strengthen women’s desire to have a voice in decision-making. “The face of agriculture in South Asia, particularly wheat farming, is feminizing,” says Cathy Rozel Farnworth. She is a social inclusion, gender and agriculture expert working with CIMMYT’s Gender Research Unit to analyze interactions between changing gender norms and agricultural innovation.
This shift was one of the findings in a series of comparative studies conducted through GENNOVATE in three research hotspots in South Asia: Bangladesh, India and Nepal. Farnworth and co-authors from the region, CIMMYT and Glasgow Caledonian University analyzed the similarities and distinctions in each country.
In the village of Nalma, Lamjung District, Nepal, most of the adult male population has gone abroad for work. (Photo: Mokhamad Edliadi/CIFOR)
Shifting rules
In Nepal, women are traditionally seen as destitute and far from equals in the farming community. However, migration of men to urban areas and to other countries has given way to more opportunities in agriculture for women in rural communities. “This translates to a fundamental change in the social structure of communities and the roles of men and women, due to the absence of men,” says Farnworth. Women in the community are increasingly taking on the challenging managerial roles that men once occupied. While women in Nepal support themselves and their families, they rarely have institutional support from rural advisory services, for example, training on new wheat technologies. On occasion, support comes from individual male extension workers, and women report that NGOs have been critical to building their sense of empowerment and entitlement. Learning networks between women farmers are also important. Overall, the gender myth that “wheat is a man’s crop” is shifting in Nepal, but extension services, researchers, the private sector and others need to catch up quickly with this new reality to help provide women with adequate support.
Wheat is also increasingly becoming a women’s crop in India, despite limited institutional support and neglect. In some locations, women are responding to male outmigration not only by increasing their work in the field, but also taking key decisions, for example on hiring labor and machinery. Some women are also driving machinery themselves. In other locations, women, though not involved in fieldwork, are trying to strengthen their participation in decision-making around wheat technologies. They have an understandable interest in what happens on the farm and in how investments will impact family income. Overall, the GENNOVATE data shows that, “Women are limited by, working with and increasingly renegotiating gender and caste identities,” says Farnworth.
In Bangladesh, a women-only agricultural organization dominated by the Santal indigenous community is strongly innovating in wheat. Interestingly, the organization is drawing in and supporting low-income Muslim women innovators as well. This case study is particularly valuable in relation to achieving Sustainable Development Goals because it shows that even though Santal women are truly “left behind” in Bangladesh, very small institutional modifications have enabled them to take charge of the organization and inspire a whole community.
Taking decisions and innovating
Women use a mini-tiller for direct seeding in Ramghat, Surkhet, Nepal. (Photo: P. Lowe/CIMMYT)
The driving force surrounding these cases in South Asia is the gender equality narrative. The narrative is not driven by men or external partners; rather, it is being transformed by women from within. Women have been long working in the fields; they have always been part of the wheat story. Now many women are demonstrably taking more decisions about wheat, giving them more control over their own lives and households.
GENNOVATE researchers are now looking for ways to work with women themselves, with their partners, with rural advisory sectors, the private sector, community leaders and others to address the demand for technological advances to improve their wheat harvest, including machinery. The starting point is that women need to be seen as capable farmers. Partners need to get on board and start working the new realities of “who does what,” “who decides” and “who benefits,” rather than continue subscribing to old myths. Rural women farmers have critical interests in wheat, whether they farm in the field or not. Women want and are seeking inclusion. Women are collectively expressing, “We have the right to be interested, and participate in innovating around wheat,” Farnworth states.
The comparative studies are available for download:
Cathy Rozel Farnworth is a social inclusion, gender and agriculture expert. She holds a PhD in Rural Development Studies from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and an MA in Gender Analysis. Farnworth collaborates with CIMMYT on the CGIAR GENNOVATE global research project, among others. Farnworth trained and mentored the Ethiopian GENNOVATE research teams and has also supported CIMMYT’s gender research under the CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).
Involving diverse segments of a target population in agricultural innovation interventions allows for more inclusive and equitable processes while stimulating local innovation and development outcomes. But what are the key characteristics of rural innovators? And how are their experiences similar for women and men, and how are they different?
To examine these questions, a team of researchers from CIMMYT, collaborating CGIAR centers, and Wageningen University and Research conducted individual interviews with 336 rural women and men known in their communities for trying out new things in agriculture. The results of this study are collected in 84 GENNOVATE community case studies from 19 countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Building on study participants’ own reflections and experiences with innovation in their agricultural livelihoods, the research team combined variable-oriented analysis with analysis of specific individuals’ lived experience. The study provides in-depth knowledge on how the characteristics and experiences of individual innovators interlink with the social setting to facilitate or impede innovation.
Results indicate that factors related to personality and agency are what most drive capacity to innovate. Access to resources is not a prerequisite but an important enabling aspect. Women have great potential for local innovation, but structural inequalities mean that men are often better positioned to access resources and leverage support – as a result when women challenge the status quo, men’s support is important.
This paper draws on data collected as part of GENNOVATE case studies funded by the CGIAR Research Programs on Wheat, Maize, Grain Legumes, Humid Tropics and Rice, as well as RTB (Roots, Tubers and Bananas), A4NH (Agriculture for Nutrition and Health) and FTA (Forests, Trees and Agroforestry).
Development of research design and field methodology was supported by the CGIAR Gender & Agricultural Research Network, the World Bank, the governments of Mexico and Germany, and the CGIAR Research Programs on Wheat and Maize. Data analysis was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Women farmers in Nepal use a mini tiller for direct seeding. (Photo: P.Lowe/CIMMYT)
Check out other recent publications by CIMMYT researchers below:
Facilitating change for climate-smart agriculture through science-policy engagement. Dinesh, D., Zougmore, R., Vervoort, J., Totin, E., Thornton, P.K., Solomon, D., Shirsath, P.B., Pede, V.O., Lopez-Noriega, I., Läderach, P., Korner, J., Hegger, D., Girvetz, E.H,. Friis, A.E., Driessen, P.P.J., Campbell, B.M. In: Sustainability v. 10, no. 8, art. 2616.
Assessment of management options on striga infestation and maize grain yield in Kenya. Kanampiu, F., Makumbi, D., Mageto, E.K., Omanya, G., Waruingi, S., Musyoka, P., Ransom, J. K. In: Weed Science v. 66, no. 4, p. 516-524.
Maize combined insect resistance genomic regions and their co-localization with cell wall constituents revealed by tissue-specific QTL meta-analyses. Badji, A., Otim, M., Machida, L., Odong, T., Kwemoi, D.B., Okii, D., Agbahoungba, S., Mwila, N., Kumi, F., Ibanda, A., Mugo, S.N., Kyamanywa, S., Rubaihayo, P. In: Frontiers in Plant Science v. 9, art. 895.
Gender and equitable benefit-sharing mechanisms through agricultural innovation platforms in Rwanda. Adam, R.I., Misiko, M.T., Dusengemungu, L., Rushemuka, P.N., Mukakalisa, Z. In: Community Development vol. 49, no. 4, p. 380-397
Genomic-enabled prediction models using multi-environment trials to estimate the effect of genotype × environment interaction on prediction accuracy in chickpea. Roorkiwal, M., Jarquín, D., Muneendra K. Singh., Pooran M. Gaur., Chellapilla Bharadwaj., Abhishek Rathore., Howard, R., Samineni Srinivasan., Ankit Jain., Vanika Garg., Sandip Kale., Annapurna Chitikineni., Shailesh Tripathi., Jones, E., Robbins, K., Crossa, J., Varshney, R. K. In: Scientific Reports v. 8, art. 11701.
The 2018 MAIZE Youth Innovators Awards – Asia recognize the contributions of young women and men who can inspire fellow young people to get involved in maize-based research, social change and farming. The awards are sponsored by the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE) in collaboration with Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD).
The awardees have been invited to attend the 13th Asian Maize Conference in Ludhiana, India, where they will present their work and receive their awards.
The winners in the two categories are:
RESEARCHER
Dinesh Panday, Nepal
Focus: Soil fertility and nutrient management
Dinesh Panday.
Dinesh Panday’s family has a long history in agriculture, which strongly rooted his passions in the field of soil science. He is a Doctorate Graduate Research Assistant in Soil Fertility and Nutrient Management at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln under the supervision of Bijesh Maharjan and Richard Ferguson.
His research aims to determine the effectiveness of high carbon char in reducing environmental nitrogen loss and improving nitrogen fertilizer use efficiency in fertilized soils in semi-arid regions. Using active and passive sensors to detect maize nitrogen stress, predict grain yield and determine in-season and additional side-dress applications of nitrogen fertilizer it is possible to reduce environmental impacts.
Jie Xu, China
Focus: Drought stress in maize root systems
Jie Xu.
An associate researcher at Sichuan Agricultural University, China, Jie Xu is interested in how maize roots influence performance under drought stress. By studying maize inbred lines that exhibit different drought tolerance, her research explores their genome and transcriptome variations to understand the genetic basis of plant adaptation to drought. The findings can then be used in breeding drought-tolerant maize.
Jie Xu and her team have developed methods to dissect the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms underlying maize drought stress response. This work involves the identification of non-synonymous SNPs and corresponding candidate genes for drought tolerance using analyses such as common variant and clustering techniques. Her team also revealed the impact smRNAs and histone modifications have in the regulation of maize drought stress response.
Vignesh Muthusamy, India
Focus: Development of biofortified provitamin-A rich QPM maize hybrids
Vignesh Muthusamy.
Vignesh Muthusamy is from a farming community in the Namakkal district in Tamil Nadu. A Senior Scientist at the Division of Genetics, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, he specializes in maize genetics and breeding. His research demonstrates the use of modern biotechnological tools in crop improvement. He was associated with the development of India’s first provitamin A enriched maize hybrid ‘Pusa Vivek QPM 9 Improved’ and with the development of three quality protein maize hybrids that possess high lysine and tryptophan in protein. These biofortified maize hybrids offer tremendous scope to address widespread human malnutrition. Further research work includes the development of a high-yielding sweet corn hybrid and several novel maize genetic resources for nutritional quality traits.
Muthusamy has received many prestigious awards from different societies and scientific organizations, including Jawaharlal Nehru Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Agricultural and Allied Sciences from Indian Council of Agricultural Research. As Principal Investigator, he is handling projects funded by Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science & Technology, Government of India for development of nutritionally rich maize and specialty corn genotypes. Besides research, he is also actively involved in teaching and guidance of post graduate students of the institute.
CHANGE AGENT
Samjhana Khanal, Nepal
Focus: Social inclusion of young people and site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) using Nutrient Expert®
Samjhana Khanal.
Samjhana Khanal, an agricultural graduate, has founded and co-founded various social organizations at a local level in Nepal to involve young minds in the development of innovative strategies to work towards sustainable agriculture and zero hunger.
Besides taking part in agricultural trainings, workshops and conferences during her undergraduate degree, Samjhana worked as a R&D Research Assistant at the Eastern Regional Agricultural Directorate in Nepal and has published a number of research papers. Her most recent research involves the productivity and profitability of hybrid maize using the Nutrient Expert® Maize model in eastern Terai, Nepal. Using Nutrient Expert®, a dynamic nutrient management tool based on site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) principles, farm-specific fertilizer recommendations for maize are possible, resulting in higher grain yield and improved productivity and profits for farmers.
After receiving training from CIMMYT, this group of young men started a small business offering mechanized agricultural services to smallholder farmers near their town in rural Zimbabwe. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)
The sound of an engine roars as Gift Chawara, a 28-year-old from rural Zimbabwe, carefully removes a mesh bag bulging with maize grain hooked to his mechanized sheller. Fed with dried maize cobs, the sheller separates the grain from the shaft before shooting the kernels out the side into the awaiting bag. Chawara swiftly replaces the full bag with an empty one as the kernels continue to spill out.
It is eleven in the morning and the sun beats down over the small farm. Chawara and his friends have only been working a few hours and have already shelled 7 tons for their neighbor and customer Loveness Karimuno; thirteen more tons to go.
The widowed farmer watches as the bags of grain line up, ready for her to take to market. It used to take Karimuno two to three weeks to shell her maize harvest by hand, even with the help of hired labor. This grueling task saw her rub each maize ear on a rough surface to remove the grain from the shaft. Now, these young men and their mechanized sheller will do it in just a few hours for a small fee.
“When my neighbor told me the boys were shelling small amounts of maize at reasonable prices, I got in contact with them,” said Karimuno. “It’s cheaper than hiring people to help me do it manually and the speed means I can sell it faster.”
It used to take widowed farmer Loveness Karimuno (left) two or three weeks to shell her 20-ton maize harvest manually, even with the help of hired labor. Using mechanization services, all of her maize is shelled within a day, meaning she can take her grain to market faster. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)
The group of young entrepreneurs is serving almost 150 family farms around the village of Mwanga, located about two hours northwest of the capital Harare. They offer services such as shelling and planting, powered by special machinery. Since Chawara and his partners started the business three years ago, word has spread and now they are struggling to keep up with demand, he expressed.
Mechanized agricultural services have traditionally only been used by large-scale farmers who could afford the high prices, but small and medium-sized machines are fast becoming affordable options for family farmers through the advent of service providers, explained Frédéric Baudron, an agronomist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The five young men are among the increasing number of youth across eastern and southern Africa creating a stable living as entrepreneurs in agricultural mechanization service provision, Baudron said.
Tired of the lack of profitable work in their rural community, the group of youths jumped on the opportunity to join a training on agricultural mechanization, run by CIMMYT. They heard about this training through local extension workers.
“We would probably be out of work if we hadn’t had the opportunity to learn how agricultural mechanization can be used to help smallholder farmers and gain skills to run our own business to provide these services,” Chawara expressed as he took a quick rest from shelling under a tree.
“It has really changed our lives. Last season we shelled over 300 tons of maize making just under US $7,000,” he said. “It has gone a long way in helping us support our families and invest back into our business.”
Masimba Mawire, 30, and Gift Chawara, 28, take a break from shelling and rest under a tree. The small car behind was bought by Chawara with his profits earned from the mechanization service business. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)
Chawara and his partners attended one of these trainings, hosted on the grounds of an agricultural technical college on the outskirts of Harare. For a week, they participated in practical courses led by local agriculture and business experts.
As part of the CIMMYT research project, the youth group paid a commitment fee and were loaned a planter and sheller to start their business, which they are now paying off with their profits.
Youth tend to be better at managing modern technologies and successfully take to service providing, said Baudron, who leads the FACASI project.
“We found consistently, in all countries where we work, that being a successful service provider is highly correlated to being young,” he highlighted. “However, other factors are also important, such as being entrepreneurial, educated, able to contribute to the cost of the machinery and preferably having an experience in similar businesses, particularly in mechanics.”
(From left to right) Shepard Kawiz, 24, gathers dried maize cobs into a bucket passing it to his brother Pinnot Karwizi, 26, who pours the maize into the sheller machine by feeding the hopper. The maize falls into the sheller’s barrel where high-speed rotation separates the grain from the cob. As the bare shafts are propelled out one side, Masimba Mawire, 30, is there to catch and dispose of them. Meanwhile, Gift Chawara, 28, is making sure a bag is securely hooked to the machine to collect the maize grain. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)
Mentoring and support are key to success
The young men operate like a well-oiled machine. Shepard Kawiz, 24, gathers dried maize cobs into a bucket and passes it to his brother Pinnot Karwizi, 26, who pours the maize into the sheller machine by feeding the hopper. The maize falls into the sheller’s barrel where high-speed rotation separates the grain from the cob. As bare shafts are propelled out one side, Masimba Mawire, 30, is there to catch and dispose of them. Meanwhile, Gift Chawara is making sure a bag is securely hooked to the machine to collect the maize grain.
Trials showed that when youth form a group and are provided guidance they are more inclined to succeed as service providers, explained CIMMYT agribusiness development specialist Dorcas Matangi.
“The group model works because they share the costs, the workload and they are more attractive to lenders when looking for investment capital,” she remarked.
Throughout the season, Mantangi works with local government extension workers and engineers from the University of Zimbabwe to mentor those starting out. They also organize meetings where service providers can gather to discuss challenges and opportunities.
“This is a good opportunity to iron out any problems with the machines, connect them with mechanics and spare part providers and we gain their feedback to improve the design of machinery,” she added.
Mechanization backs resilient farming systems
CIMMYT has provided a model to promote the use of agricultural mechanization among smallholder farmers through service providers, affirmed Misheck Chingozha, a mechanization officer with Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Agriculture.
Farm machinery helps farmers implement sustainable crop practices that benefit from greater farm power and precision,” he said. “This is in line with the government’s strategy to promote conservation agriculture – defined by minimal soil disturbance, crop residue retention and diversification through crop rotation and intercropping.”
CIMMYT promotes small-scale mechanization, such as two-wheel tractor-based technologies, including direct seeding planters that reduce labor and allow for improved resource allocation when implementing these practices, described CIMMYT’s Baudron.
Conservation agriculture is a sustainable intensification practice that seeks to produce more food, improve nutrition and livelihoods, and boost rural incomes without an increase in inputs – such as land and water – thus reducing environmental impacts.
With support from CIMMYT, students at the University of Zimbabwe are working to develop agricultural machinery fitted to the environmental conditions and needs of farmers in their country and other parts of Africa. (Photo: Matthew O’Leary/CIMMYT)
Students fuel next-generation machinery
As part of their degree, students at the University of Zimbabwe are working with CIMMYT to continuously improve the effectiveness and efficiency of agricultural machinery.
In a bid to improve the allocation of resources, agricultural engineering student Ronald Mhlanga, 24, worked on a prototype that uses sensors to monitor the amount of seed and fertilizer distributed by planters attached to two-wheel tractors. The device sends information to the driver if anything goes off course, helping farmers improve precision and save resources.
“Often planters will get clogged with mud blocking seeding. The sensors identify this and send a signal to the driver,” said Mhlanga. “This allows the driver to focus on driving and limits wasted resources.”
Learning from farmer feedback and working with agricultural engineers and the private sector, CIMMYT is building agricultural mechanization suited to the needs and conditions of sub-Saharan African farms, concluded Baudron.
Nominations are open for the 2018 Maize-Asia Youth Innovators Awards. The first edition of these awards recognizes the contributions of young women and men below 35 years of age who are implementing innovations in Asian maize-based agri-food systems.
The awards aim to identify young innovators who can serve to inspire other young people to get involved in maize-based agri-food systems.
Winners will be given the opportunity to present their work at the 13th Asian Maize Conference in Ludhiana, India (October 8-12, 2018). They will also join a platform for young innovators from around the world to network and share their experiences.
MAIZE invites CGIAR researchers and partners to nominate young innovators for any of the following three categories:
a) Researcher: Maize research-for-development (in any discipline)
b) Farmer: Maize farming systems in Asia
c) Change agent: Maize value chains (i.e., extension agents, input and service suppliers,
transformation agents).
Despite the rising interest in advanced methods to discover useful genes for breeding in crops like wheat, the role of crop physiology research is now more important than ever, according to Gemma Molero, a wheat physiologist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
“Physiology starts with the physical, observable plant,” Molero said. “It attempts to understand plant traits and processes and, ultimately, to provide breeders with selectable traits. Take for example the plant’s ability to capture and use sunlight. This is a complex trait and there are no useful DNA markers for it, so we have to analyze how it works and then help breeders to select plants that use sunlight better and yield more grain.”
A key goal of breeders and physiologists is to boost wheat’s genetic yield potential dramatically. Progress through current breeding is less than 1 percent each year. Molero said that needs to go to 1.7 percent yearly, to meet the demand expected by 2050 from expanding and urbanizing populations.
“Science must also adapt wheat to rising temperatures, less water, and mutating disease strains, and physiology is contributing,” she added.
Applied science and fieldwork drew Molero to CIMMYT
Molero grew up near Barcelona, Spain, in a family that included a folk-healing grandmother and a grandfather whose potato fields and orchards she recalls helping to tend as a child, during summers in Granada.
“My family called me ‘santurrona’ — something like ‘goody-two-shoes’ in English — because I was always trying to help people around me,” Molero explained.
Molero completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology at the University of Barcelona, Spain, by 2006. She then pursued a doctorate in eco-physiology under the supervision of José Luis Araus, a University of Barcelona professor who was also working as a CIMMYT maize physiologist around the same time.
“Araus was an example of persistence and enthusiasm for me,” Molero explained. “He sent me to the CIMMYT research station near Ciudad Obregón, in northwestern Mexico, for fieldwork as part of my Ph.D. research. That sealed the deal. I said ‘This is the type of work where I can have impact, in an interdisciplinary setting, and with fieldwork.’ ”
She joined CIMMYT in 2011 as a post-doctoral fellow with Matthew Reynolds, a CIMMYT distinguished scientist who leads wheat physiology research.
Wheat spikes hold grain and catch light
Molero has quickly made a mark in CIMMYT wheat physiology research. Among other achievements, she has spearheaded studies on photosynthesis in wheat spikes — the small ears that hold the grain — to increase yield.
“In elite wheat varieties, spike photosynthesis adds an average 30 percent to grain yield,” she said. “In wheat wild relatives and landraces, that can go as high as 60 percent. This has put wheat spike photosynthesis in the science limelight.”
Practical outputs of this work, which involves numerous partners, include molecular markers and other tools that breeders can use to select for high spike photosynthesis in experimental lines. “We have a project with Bayer Crop Science to refine the methods,” Molero said.
Molero is also collaborating with plant biologists Stephen Long, University of Illinois, and Elizabete Carmo-Silva, Lancaster University, UK, to understand how quickly wheat returns to full photosynthesis after being shaded — for example, when clouds pass overhead. According to Molero, wheat varies greatly in its response to shading; over a long cropping season, quick recoveries can add 20 percent or more to total productivity.
“This is a breakthrough in efforts to boost wheat yields,” explained Molero, who had met Long through his participation in the International Wheat Yield Partnership (IWYP), an initiative that aims to raise wheat’s genetic yield potential by 50 percent over the next two decades. “I was fortunate to arrive at CIMMYT at just the right time, when IWYP and similar global partnerships were being formalized.”
Training youth and improving conditions for young women
From a post-doctoral fellow to her current position as a full scientist at CIMMYT, Molero has supervised 13 Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows, as well as serving as an instructor in many training courses.
“During my first crop cycle at Ciudad Obregón, I was asked to coordinate the work of five Ph.D. students,” she said. “I’d arrive home exhausted from long days and fall asleep reading papers. But I love supervising students and it’s a great way to learn about diverse facets of wheat physiology.”
Regarding the challenges for women and youth in the scientific community, Molero believes a lot needs to change.
“Science is male-dominated and fieldwork even more,” she observed. “It’s challenging being a woman and being young — conditions over which we have no control but which can somehow blind peers to our scientific knowledge and capacity. Instances of what I call ‘micro-machismo’ may appear small but they add up and, if you push back, the perceived ‘feminism’ makes some male scientists uncomfortable.”
Molero also believes young scientists need ample room to develop. “The most experienced generation has to let the new generation grow and make mistakes.”
In the tribal belt of Mayurbhanj, Odisha, maize cultivation is becoming increasingly popular. Thousands of acres of fallow upland areas are suitable for maize cultivation during the kharif (monsoon) season due to the availability of rain, a slopy landscape and porous red soil. As maize is considered a ‘women’s crop,’ meaning that it is mainly cultivated by women, the expansion of maize can increase women’s economic opportunities as well. The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) has worked in Mayurbhanj since 2013 to increase agricultural productivity and diversify livelihood options for farmers. One way to maximize the productivity of their arable upland areas is to cultivate maize on previously fallowed land during kharif.
In 2017, CSISA held and event in Badbil village at which 130 members of 10 different self-help groups showcased their work on commercial maize cultivation from the previous year. Members of Baitarani Maa Shibani, a women’s self-helf group from Tangabila village with a 12-year history of participating in agricultural programs in the area were impressed with the successes they saw and felt inspired to cultivate maize themselves.
After some discussion within the group, six of the 16 members decided to start cultivating maize as soon as possible. The group allowed these women to take a loan from their joint savings to cover start-up costs. Having also received support from their husbands, despite skepticism in some cases, the six women proceeded to plant maize on fallow land as villagers looked on critically.
Women from the Baitarani Maa Shibani women’s self-help group who decided to take on maize cultivation. Photo: D. Vedachalam/CIMMYT.
The women approached a community resource person from a women’s group in the Sayangsidha Federation to learn how to cultivate maize, as the community resource person had already attended trainings organized by CSISA and the Department of Agriculture. They also sought guidance from other maize farmers, as well as from CSISA. One of the women worked with the state Horticulture Department and was permitted to grow crops during off-season on a 37 acre plot of land. This opportunity gave the women immediate access to land.
CSISA suggested that they only cultivate 10 acres the first year as planting in the last week of July meant they had missed optimal sowing time for maize, which runs from the first week of June until mid-July. CSISA-trained service providers helped the group complete sowing within two days, following best-bet management practices for land preparation and sowing, including integrated weed management using herbicides and power weeders, sensible fertilizer use and post-harvest management to maintain high quality dry grain. The group also visited a large CSISA and Department of Agriculture event in the tribal-dominated village of Kashipal. Interacting with other farmers and seeing their successes boosted the womens’ confidence, especially when they saw what they could achieve the following year if they sowed their crop earlier.
At the end of the season, the women harvested 11 metric tons of good quality dry grain. CSISA, the Department of Agriculture and the district administration facilitated the procurement of this grain by Venkateswara Hatchery, one of the leading poultry production plants in the region, at a price of $223 (INR 14,500) per metric ton. This group of six women farmers had invested $923 (INR 60,000) for maize cultivation and earned $2,453 (INR 159,500). They were able to repay their loan and keep the rest of the profit as savings. The women felt proud and confident knowing they had set an example for other group members and men in the village who did not believe it would work.
Following this success, in the 2018 kharif season, more farmers (both men and women) are planning to utilize fallow land for maize cultivation. This will help farmers increase their income, and improve their collective access to markets, since their total grain production will be larger and better able to meet the needs of local industry.
Unfortunately, Baitarani Maa Shibani has not been given access to the same piece of land this year, so they have planned to cultivate maize on 10 acres of their own land in the plantation area. This change in fortune mirrors the cautionary tale reflected in the experience of maize-cultivating women of Badbil village, who also found it harder to get access to leasable land following their economic success in 2016. However, women in Mayurbhanj are still optimistic. Inspired by the success of Baitarani Maa Shibani, another group, Baitarani Maa Duarsani, is now planning to cultivate maize this season.
A decade earlier in Mayurbhanj, women often did not even step out of their houses. They feared going to the market or to the bank. Now, through opportunities afforded by economic development programs and collaborations such as the one with CSISA, women often hold leadership positions in their groups, go to the bank and are active members of their village. Money earned by self-help groups is frequently used to educate children as members want their daughters to be educated and have better opportunities.
The enthusiastic women who stepped forward to cultivate maize in the face of so much uncertainty are an example of what women can achieve through collective effort, dedication, hard work and determination, as well as by tapping into the potential productivity of the fallow land around them. CSISA will continue to facilitate partnerships, technical trainings and market linkages in Mayurbhanj to support income generation amongst women’s groups and tribal communities through the cultivation of maize and companion crops.
The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) was established in 2009 with a goal of benefiting more than 8 million farmers by the end of 2020. The project is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and is led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and implemented jointly with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Operating in rural ‘innovation hubs’ in Bangladesh, India and Nepal, CSISA works to increase the adoption of various resource-conserving and climate-resilient technologies, and improve farmers’ access to market information and enterprise development. CSISA supports women farmers by improving their access and exposure to modern and improved technological innovations, knowledge and entrepreneurial skills. CSISA works in synergy with regional and national efforts, collaborating with myriad public, civil society and private-sector partners.
About the authors: Sujata Ganguly is Research Consultant for CIMMYT and Wasim Iftikar is a Research Associate.
Vijesh Krishna is a lead economist focusing on the economics of technological change in agriculture. He joined CIMMYT in 2017 and has been mainly working on inclusive technology adoption and its impacts on resource use, productivity, and farmer livelihoods. Before joining CIMMYT, Krishna worked as a senior research fellow at the University of Goettingen in Germany (2012-2017), where he examined the determinants and impacts of land-use transformation systems in Indonesia. He also worked as a production and resource economist for CIMMYT in South Asia (2009-2012) and as a Ciriacy-Wantrup post-doctoral fellow at the University of California at Berkeley (2008-2009).
Krishna holds a PhD in agricultural economics (University of Hohenheim), an MPhil in environmental policy (University of Cambridge), and an MSc in agricultural economics (University of Agricultural Sciences Bangalore). His research findings are published in several peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.
