Gender, Food, Agriculture, and Coronavirus

by: Margaret Abiodun Adesugba

Doing evidence-based gender research on agricultural and food systems in Africa can be challenging even under normal circumstances. Collecting quality gender data to inform research and policy without losing the meaning of gender in the male-female dichotomy and actually making sense of the data collected for use by different stakeholders remains a huge challenge. There is also the challenge of understanding and unpacking the diverse cultural and social implications of “doing gender” in Africa’s complex agricultural and food system. Also, the priority of most governments seems to be women’s inclusion in programmes with the expectation that it will increase gender equality rather than actually understanding and tackling the fundamental gender issues that continue to reinforce gender inequality. Despite the progress in Africa’s food and agricultural systems especially with value chain development, farmers still face several uncertainties like flood, drought, food insecurity, market price fluctuations among other and women continue to be more disadvantaged than men.

Now, add these to the uncertainties and challenges that COVID-19 brings. The first questions I had when the lockdown was enforced in most African countries is what if farmers cannot farm because of the pandemic? How will COVID-19 affect men and women in agriculture? Will it further widen the gender inequality gap in agriculture? How would women in particular cope without participation in markets especially in rural areas where most markets depend on contact with people and online markets and delivery systems are almost non-existent? Would Africa’s budding agricultural value chain system that depends on a large proportion of smallholder farmers survive the disruptions that COVID-19 brings? What about food security, food scarcity and market prices? What new dimensions of vulnerabilities will COVID-19 expose among rural households and their livelihoods as farmers? What will happen to all the progress that most African countries are beginning to make in the food and agricultural sector? And as researchers, how will COVID-19 change how research, especially the data collection part, is done in Africa’s rural areas where the most viable and reliable means of data collection especially qualitative data involves close contact with respondents who need to trust you? One thing that is certain is that the way data is collected will have to change.

While some researchers like me, and organisations are adapting to new ways of collecting data via mostly telephone interviews and online surveys, it is becoming clearer now more than ever that most rural areas in Africa are not ready or equipped to sustain these methods of data collection. Apart from access to phones, how many African smallholder farmers have access to internet or computers or even improved mechanisation? Also, while the transition to working from home for researchers like myself who have access to internet, resources, and the institutional support to do so was fairly easy, the same cannot be said for most researchers and students studying agriculture in African countries. Most researchers that I have spoken with have had to use their own funds to navigate working from home.

I had asked a young gender expert, Grace Muinga who works to bring improved technology to farmers based on research needs in Kenya, Zambia, Ghana and Uganda what her experience has been during the pandemic. Because the lockdown started in most African countries towards the beginning of the farming season, the likelihood that most farmers will not receive support from programmes and projects or even technology that they need during the planting season was high.  As Grace puts it, the impact of COVID-19 will certainly last longer than anticipated despite the fact that the infection rate in most African countries remains low. This means that research, advocacy and policy responses on gender, agricultural and food systems in Africa has to be adapted to meet the reality of COVID-19 and prepare farmers for other unforeseen events. Beyond providing technology, the way contact is made with farmers will have to change such that communication can be sustained in the absence of the possibility of physical contact. Governments as well as non-governmental organisations in several African countries have created several intervention programmes to reach out to farmers to reduce the impact of COVID-19 among farmers. However, some farmers may still be left out and the gendered impact remains to be fully understood. Since the infection rates in most African countries have slowed down, priorities seem to be shifting from the impact of COVID-19 in Africa’s agricultural and food systems especially at the local level.

The pandemic was not anticipated-it took us all by surprise. We were helpless and only hoped that the farmers would take their own initiative and plant their crop without project support. We are yet to assess the gender impact of the pandemic. We will only be able to tell the full impact of the pandemic in the next year. Grace Mnuiga, Gender professional, Kenya.

COVID-19, Women, Rural Markets and Food Systems

From my experience with working with households in rural communities in Nigeria, women are the unsung heroes in rural markets and communities. Pre-COVID-19, I had travelled to different rural markets as part of my PhD for data collection. Market days are essential for women in rural areas. Like their male counterparts, they contribute significantly to how rural markets operate, but usually have limited stance on how markets are designed and how decisions are made. They also often struggle to get permanent stalls to sell their products. With the way rural markets operate, it is difficult if not impossible to have any social distance as there are limited infrastructure to enact social distance rules. The same also goes for food safety. Most of the rural women in the markets I visited had no means to ensure that the food safety is ensured in such open markets where they operate.

With the COVID-19 lockdown, access to markets became limited most especially for women who usually have low mobility. Food prices increased as the cost of transportation also increased since most means of transportation that farmers in general use charged higher transport rates for the higher risk they had to take to travel against lockdown rules. While those in formal employment were still adjusting to the transition to working from home, it dawned on me that most of the women I met in rural communities do most of their off-farm work from home already. However, in order for them to get income from their “off-farm work from home”, they have to participate in markets that they cannot bring home with no or limited protection from any potential infection. The hike in food prices also caused disruptions to food supply systems. From a gender perspective, women are more likely to face even higher vulnerability since they are usually responsible for having their families fed and without the income they get from participating in markets it becomes even more difficult.

Lessons

I think one lesson African governments and non-government organisations could learn from the pandemic is that systems and institutions need to be developed to ensure that farmers are better prepared to thrive in diverse situations.  As a researcher, what is worrisome is that there appears to be limited information on strategic actions that organisations, especially governments involved in policy-making, have on how to tackle the impact of COVID-19 from a gender perspective. As such, there is a need to strengthen connections between social science and gendered research on Africa’s agricultural and food systems and governments’ strategies and policies.

Photo credits: Margaret Abiodun Adesugba

 

Margaret Abiodun Adesugba is a Ph.D. Candidate and Commonwealth Scholar at the Centre for Rural Economy, Newcastle University. She also holds an MSc in Agricultural Development Economics with distinction from the University of Reading, UK (2012) where she studied as a Diageo Foundation Scholar and a BSc (Agriculture) with first class honours from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (2010). She has worked with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Nigeria on several projects and as a consultant with the Department for International Development (DFID-Nigeria) in collaboration with IFPRI. Her research focuses on gender and agriculture in the global South and North. Specifically, gender inequality in agriculture, agricultural and rural development policies and programmes in the rural economy, sustainable livelihoods in rural geographies, rural institutions, and institutional arrangements, influence of community-based cooperatives on development of rural agriculture, collective action, vulnerabilities and resilience.

by: Sara Hendery and Daniel Sumner

While the COVID-19 pandemic is slowing down in some areas of the world, its impact on food security could have long-term effects on millions of people, particularly women and marginalized communities. If pest and disease incidence is left unmanaged in farmers’ fields due to limited access to resources, yields have the potential to dramatically decrease. Social distancing, disrupted markets, and labor shortages are just a few of the barriers keeping people from buying, selling, and consuming the food they need.

In Africa and Asia, where the U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Integrated Pest Management (IPM IL) works to improve farmer livelihoods and increase food security, the program’s collaborative researchers and farmers have been uniquely impacted by the onset of COVID-19. As farmers attempt to grow crops without the trusted resources they typically rely on, researchers addressing food security issues are facing their own constraints gathering data, rescheduling delayed activities, and managing ever-changing workspaces.

As COVID-19 increasingly highlights the fragility of global food supply, the IPM IL aims to address gaps along the way. Below are snapshots of the experiences of farmers and researchers collaborating with the IPM IL amid the pandemic – their obstacles, insights, lessons learned, and pathways to progress.

Kenya

For the IPM IL, the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) does the critical work of setting up on-farm trials of IPM solutions to crop problems. These trials help to validate the efficacy of products like Trichoderma, a naturally occurring fungus that helps boost plant defense mechanisms against threats. Due to the pandemic, however, trials have been put on hold.

Jesca Mbaka, a plant pathologist at KALRO, said that setbacks like these may have an especially negative impact on women.

“Women are likely to be marginalized due to their low bargaining power,” Mbaka said. “Demand for non-essential goods like crafts and clothing, among other commodities dominating the informal sector, is currently low. Small food kiosks that are significantly run by women have been driven out of business due to recommended social distancing rules.”

Additionally, both schools and childcare facilities have closed in Kenya due to COVID-19, shifting the childcare burden to households, and more specifically to women.

Mbaka also said that as she, too, attempts to manage COVID-19 restrictions while coordinating for several development projects, she is experiencing a social shift.

“It [working in the field] is not readily acceptable to my family members, despite the fact that I am the sole bread winner,” she said. “My family is thinking of my vulnerability.”

To continue providing resources during the pandemic, the KALRO team is utilizing WhatsApp groups – where images, videos, and details of pests and diseases can be shared – that include project collaborators, extension agents, and lead farmers. The virtual groups help maintain connections between the field and the lab and foster the real-time agricultural assistance necessary for addressing emerging threats.

“There is no choice but to get aligned to mass adoption of technology in agricultural research and extension,” Mbaka said. “There is opportunity to redefine how agriculture is supposed to be delivered in the 21^st Century. Adoption of agri-tech has the potential to revolutionize food production systems for prosperity and ensure adequate food production during and post COVID-19.”

Cambodia

Siem Reap

In Cambodia, the surge of unemployment due to COVID-19 has forced many farmer families to adapt to new realities.

Take, for example, La Koeurn and her husband Say Sovanna, who live in Siem Reap. Their five-member family was forced to rely solely on their home vegetable garden and half-hectare rice field for food and income when they both lost their jobs due to the pandemic. The family simultaneously observed a major shift in demand for vegetables as tourists in Siem Reap significantly dwindled. What vegetables used to earn the family $100 a month reduced to just $25-$50 a month.

In Chriev Commune, another area of Siem Reap, Chet Chenda and her husband Yun Yoeurn are facing similar issues. Chenda is a vegetable grower and Yoeurn is a receptionist at a hotel, together typically earning up to $270 a month. When Yoeurn lost his job at the height of the pandemic, the family also had to rely on income elicited from selling vegetables that were declining in value. This earned the couple $32-$50 a month, a significant decrease in earnings.

“There are several female farmers whose husbands work in Siem Reap city as motor taxi, construction workers, or at the hotel and restaurants,” said Kim Hian Seng, an IPM IL coordinator from iDE. “Most of the husbands are losing jobs during this pandemic and all schools in Cambodia have been closed since March until now. These women are now taking extra burdens to look after the children.”

The IPM IL team in Cambodia advised the two families and others like them to apply IPM practices to boost yields and income. Farmer families began using seedling trays, for example, instead of putting seeds directly in the soil, to ensure healthier crop growth. Planting seeds in trays also allows for easy application of coco-peat, a sterile medium that helps produce strong seedlings.

The farmers were also encouraged to grow different kinds of vegetables, like Chinese kale. The crop can grow bountifully even with inconsistent weather, and can be sold for $1.00-$1.50/kg compared to crops they usually grow for only $0.25-$0.5/kg.

“Families remain positive,” said Seng, “as they can spend more time with family and are committed to being commercial growers by learning more from the project, particularly on other high-value crops such as cauliflower, tomato, and cherry tomato.”

Phnom Penh

As economies dramatically change amid COVID-19, so does the way information is communicated, which inevitably impacts farmers’ abilities to manage crop problems. For example, the IPM IL’s collaborators at the International Rice Research Institute(IRRI) in Phnom Penh were not able to widely promote an interactive mobile tool called Cellcard 3-2-1 System. The free call-in service helps farmers diagnose pest problems and combat them by applying IPM solutions.

Rica Flor, an IRRI scientist, explained that despite this gap in promotion, a service like Cellcard addresses the urgent need for knowledge and information farmers are feeling right now. Excitingly, she has observed at least 300 farmers utilizing the tool – mostly learning about it through word of mouth – to access agricultural assistance during the pandemic.

“In terms of extension,” Flor said, “diversifying the pathways to reach farmers with knowledge – including those that require face-to-face interactions and those that do not such as mobile or internet-based options – can support projects in continuing to reach their target audiences.”

Flor also remarked that in Cambodia, the pandemic led to a rise in displaced workers, especially migrant workers in Thailand and women working in the garment industry, who returned to rural areas of the country.

“They are now landless and are thus marginalized in terms of agricultural assistance,” she said.

This dilemma highlights, Flor emphasized, the value of local food production. Due to the closure of borders, Cambodia’s small businesses may have an opportunity to purchase from growers in rural areas for the fruits, vegetables, and grains they typically receive from neighboring countries.

Nepal

One of the crucial tenets of the IPM IL’s newest project – Feed the Future Nepal Integrated Pest Management (FTFNIPM), implemented by iDE, Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC), and others – is inclusive transfer of IPM technologies. The pandemic, however, limited access to the spaces women typically rely on for information and income, such as collection centers and local markets where women sell vegetables.

Niki Maskey, a gender coordinator for the project, said that field technicians are working to meet the farmer demand for agricultural information by providing services through Community Business Facilitators (CBFs). CBFs are local farmer-entrepreneurs that help deliver supplies to rural farmers, including sustainable IPM solutions, such as pheromone traps. Maskey stated that this opportunity for access is especially important for women at this time.

“Small landholding farmers and marginalized communities in developing countries were already in crisis,” said Maskey. “Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic these barriers are likely to be huge and will continue to remain even after the situation improves…The barriers include decision-making opportunities for women farmers. Female farmers are unlikely to make decisions regarding their occupation. These decisions are most likely to be made by the male head of the family. Due to COVID-19, it might be difficult for the female farmers who once had the opportunity to make the [agricultural] decisions as the migrant male workers have returned to their home and are willing to be in charge of the activities/decisions in agricultural activities.”

Additionally, while IPM IL typically offers large in-person trainings on IPM solutions in Nepal communities, the program has now shifted to disseminating agricultural information to farmers by way of bulk text messages and over the radio. The messages include pest identification details, management methods, contact details for assistance, and more.

Also delayed by the pandemic was the program’s work on fall armyworm – which relies on introducing biocontrol of the pest – as well

as training on safe pesticide use. The IPM IL has thus shifted to virtual webinars to maintain information dissemination. Online trainings have focused on areas such as safe pesticide disposal and spraying methods and mass production of natural enemies to manage the fall armyworm, eliciting hundreds of participants including private sector professionals, NGOs, and government officials.

Bangladesh

Due to COVID-19, the experimental field plots set up by IPM IL collaborators at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) were delayed. With crucial data on pests such as Tuta absoluta, the fall armyworm, and mango fruit fly delayed for collection, mitigating their spread will also be delayed.

Yousuf Mian, the IPM IL’s project coordinator in Bangladesh, said that while these activities are being delayed for the season, long-term impacts will be felt by smallholder farmers.

“Agricultural activities are based on season,” Mian said. “If you miss the sowing season of a crop, you also miss the harvesting season. That means you lose your income. Farmers could also have a field at harvesting stage [amid COVID-19], but are not able to harvest it because of labor shortage or because of the high wages of labor. All these things will seriously affect family well-being.”

Photo credits: Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Integrated Pest Management

 

Sara Hendery is the Communications Coordinator for the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Integrated Pest Management. Since 2018, she has been responsible for documenting the program’s activities around the world aimed at improving food security and farmer livelihoods in developing countries.

 

Daniel Sumner is the Assistant Director for the Women and Gender in International Development Program from Virginia Tech’s Center for International Research, Education, and Development. Since 2014, he has been supporting the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Integrated Pest Management’s network of researchers, scientists, and implementing partners to engage with the gendered dimensions of pest management and agricultural research for development.

by: Sovanneary Huot

COVID-19 in Cambodia

The COVID-19 pandemic is truly global. It severely threatens the health and economy of all countries – large and small, rich and poor. To date, Cambodia has had fewer reported COVID-19 cases than its neighbors. As of August 6, 2020 Cambodia had only 273 COVID-19 cases, while Vietnam had 964, and Thailand 3,378. Nonetheless, the pandemic has still had far-reaching impacts on the Cambodian society and economy. For instance, in the education sector, 13,482 schools have been temporarily suspended since March 16, 2020. The tourism sector has also been hit hard due to the travel restrictions. As of May 8, 2,956 tourism-based businesses were forced to temporarily close, which caused 45,405 staff members to be laid off. As of June, the hotels and guesthouses in the famous tourist site in Siem Reap province – home to very popular, impressive and beautiful ancient temples – have been devastated. COVID-19 forced 18 hotels and 96 guesthouses to close permanently, while 172 hotels and 99 guesthouses have been temporarily shuttered. Only 40 hotels and 66 guesthouses remain in service. The closure of hotels and guesthouses in Siem Reap alone resulted in around 8,000 newly unemployed workers.

Cambodia’s textile industry, which provides a total of about 850,000 jobs, of which 85% are occupied by women, has been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Around one-third of 600 garment factories have been closed, leaving tens of thousands of workers unemployed. The majority of workers and staff are struggling to survive. The agricultural sector – the focus of this blog post – has also been severely impacted. For example, only fragrant rice is allowed to be exported; other types of rice are only sold internally to ensure domestic supply. This unprecedented situation has put farmers in a painful condition by restricting markets for their products.

The Royal Government of Cambodia COVID-19 Response

The Royal Government of Cambodia offered an initial package of $1.16 billion to help mitigate the impacts of COVID-19. Some of this support was targeted to the health system to help it prepare for a potential surge in COVID-19 cases. For livelihood coping assistance, the government provides the stimulus package funds to 2.4 million poor and vulnerable households in the categories Poor One (the poorest) and Poor Two (the second poorest). The measures to boost the economy include reducing taxes on some businesses and agencies, restructuring loans for small and medium-sized enterprises, and providing investment capital at low interest rates to small businesses.

In helping the Cambodian government fight against this global health crisis, some countries and development partners including Australia, China, the European Union, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, The United States, and Vietnamhave provided some technical and financial support to address negative economic and social impacts. For instance, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a $250 million loan to help the Government of Cambodia strengthen the country’s health system, implement social assistance to poor and vulnerable people, and provide economic stimulus to small and medium-sized enterprises. The French government provided a grant of $1.7 million to help the tourism sector recover and rebuild in a post-COVID-19 world.

The Impacts of COVID-19 on Smallholder Women Farmers

Although the number of cases in Cambodia is thankfully low to date, even the threat of COVID-19 has caused widespread suffering. Here I focus on smallholder farmers, especially women farmers, who have arguably suffered disproportionately. Smallholder farmers have commonly experienced some form of livelihood disruption and economic hardship. They find it difficult to sell their products. Basic forces of supply and demand have worked against them. Weak demand for their production forced farmers to sell their goods at lower prices, resulting in lost income and new challenges to continue in, much less expand, their farming enterprises.

To learn more about how women farmers have been affected by COVID-19, I  remotely interviewed farmers who were affiliated with the recently completed Women in Agriculture Network Project in Cambodia (WAgN-Cambodia). The WAgN Cambodia project was designed by Penn State and partners toempower women and improve the nutrition status of women and children in Cambodia. This project received support from the USAID-funded Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab (SIIL) at Kansas State University.

The team was led by Penn State researcher Rick Bates (PI), David Ader (University of Tennessee) and other Penn State and Cambodian research partners. I was also part of this project, having studied women’s leadership within agricultural cooperatives for my Master’s thesis.

Regarding the impacts of Coronavirus, a female farmer of Khom Khnat Samaki Rong Roeung Agricultural Cooperative (KKSRAC) in Siem Reap province reported that her family was badly affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. The lockdown of the country kicked her husband and her adult children out of their jobs. The closure of restaurants, schools, tourist destinations, traditional ceremonies, other businesses, and large social events led to decreasing the demand for vegetable production. Therefore, the quantity of her vegetables sold dropped by 30-40% at lower prices.

Another group of women farmers in Battambang province reported similar challenges and hardships during this COVID-19 outbreak. They sold their vegetable production at a lower price and, as a consequence, lacked investment capital for their next cycle of vegetable production. They used to have several sources of income, including selling vegetables and income from their husbands and children working in the towns, capital city, or to the neighboring countries. Since the lockdown, their husbands and children returned home, which meant both loss of income as well as added expenses for food consumption, medical care, and other household expenditures.

Through the Agriculture Rural Development Bank (ARDB), the government provides some mechanisms to help the agricultural sector by offering accessible and low-interest rates to farmers to maintain agriculture production. However, this government support was offered only to small-scale enterprises and larger farm operations, to the exclusion of smallholder farmers. While some of the farmers would have qualified for the stimulus package funds, based on their low income, that program was really more for emergency food relief. It certainly was not designed to help poor smallholders to sustain their farms. Although there is no visible food crisis at this writing, it is vital to support smallholder farmers since they are uniquely positioned to ensure locally accessible and sustainable food production and distribution during this challenging time. Therefore, the government and other development partners should consider targeted support for small-scale producers and smallholder farmers.

COVID-19 Impacts to my Personal Life

During this pandemic I have been living on the other side of the globe from my family back home. My husband and I are the only Cambodians in State College, Pennsylvania, United States. Like most people, we sometimes feel a bit feverish or have a headache now and then, troubles that these days are harder to dismiss. The worries cascade. Have we contracted COVID-19? If so, how should we tell our family back in Cambodia? My mother-in-law and my parents are old. What would happen to them if they heard that?

The COVID-19 outbreak has affected not only farmers but also consumers. As a consumer, I have been leery of consuming storebought meats, vegetables, and fruits. As news and social media have reported, U.S. workers in meatpacking, food processing, and harvesting and production have tested COVID-19 positive. For example, the recent news release titled “Eat This, Not That” reports that 50,000 such workers in the U.S have tested positive since March. To minimize risk, my husband and I grow mung bean and some vegetables and herbs inside our apartment. Sprouting mung bean takes only four to five days. Mung bean sprouts have many uses. They can be used as fresh vegetables for salad, as fried vegetables, and they also can be used to make pickles or even a dessert. By complementing what’s in our refrigerator, all this has helped reduce the need to visit the grocery store. Our cultivation of mung bean sprouts is just one way to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic crisis by finding alternative and safe foods. I hope people across regions and cultures can share other ways of self-producing food.

Photos credits:

“Women and Conservation Agriculture” Ms. Brak Yan, a female leadership member of Khom Khnat Samaki Rong Roeung Agricultural Cooperative (KKSRAC) in Siem Reap province. KKSRAC was under the WAgN-Cambodia.

“Organic vegetables” Ms. Dany and her husband (on the left), a former farmer member of the WAgN-Cambodia; Ms. Channaty Ngang (on the right), a former technical staff of WAgN-Cambodia, Battambang province

 

Sovanneary Huot is a Ph.D. Student in Rural Sociology in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education, at The Pennsylvania State University. Her work focuses on Gender, International Agriculture, and Community Development. Her Master’s thesis examines barriers that women farmers in Cambodia face in acquiring and working in leadership positions, as well as their decision-making power.