Gender, Agriculture, Nutrition Lynn Brown World Bank, GenRD, SecureNutrition, GDPRD GFAR/GAP Side Event CFS Oct 10th 2013

Upstream What governs agricultural research? Whose needs? Agriculture Production – food or commodity? Cars and food!!! Who does produce food? Food Industry – developed versus developing How is research structured – is it gendered? Car industry produces a consumer good…how do we talk about R and D? Fuel economy, flex fuel, speed, 0-60, saloon, hatchback, head room, rear seat? But how do we talk about agriculture – drought tolerance, salinity resistance, striga resistance, roundup ready! We talk about input traits not the output characteristics of the product! Developing looks just the same even tho people in the developing world would probably recognize their crops in the field, the developed world largely wouldn’t.

Focus of Agricultural Research Focus of agricultural research – commodity based Staple grains Input or Output Characteristics? Focus of Agricultural Research Again input focused, commodity focused for people who sell immediately but what do women care about –output traits as well, starkly illustrated by an example in Zambia

Gender Preferences Zambia – men and women grow maize No need for gender analysis – assumed a new hybrid maize would be good for everyone! Evaluation of hybrid maize Men still growing Women reverted to traditional maize Why? Roles of maize for men and women Men – cash crop Women – food crop, labor input –yield, milling, storage,

Focus of Agricultural Research Staple Grains Input or Output Characteristics? Sale or storage? Large Livestock Cash crops – public/private Focus of Agricultural Research Commoditization Fruits? Vegetables? Small livestock? Storage? Processing?

Environmental Enteropathy EE Gut permeability Allows nutrients to leak from the gut Gambian infants 3-15 mths – 75% of time Accountable for 43% of long term growth faltering? Nutrition interventions led to 0.7 Z score increase in height for age Environment – s***! Reversible – immigrants, Peace Corps Women’s issue or responsibility?

Mycotoxins Evidence they cause EE type issues Aspergillus fungus/mold Aflatoxins – mostly maize and groundnuts Fusarium fungus/mold – 100% of maize FUM DON Infected during growth Worsened during storage, particularly is poor drying

Aflatoxin-Albumin and stunting / underweight (Gong et al., 2002 BMJ) Af--Alb pg/mg

Why doesn’t agricultural research take into account gender issues? Why is there so little focus on environmental health issues from small livestock, Why don’t we understand the pathways with respect to nutrition for any mycotoxin? We do know aflatoxins is one reason deaths from liver cancer are highest in the developing world Questions IT’S A WOMEN’S ISSUE