Agroecology is gaining ground as a movement, science, and set of practices designed to advance a food systems transformation which subverts the patterns of farmer exploitation currently entrenched in dominant agricultural models. In order for agroecology to achieve its espoused twin aims of social and ecological wellbeing, women and other historically marginalized stakeholders must be empowered and centered as the movement’s protagonists. The importance of gender and social considerations is not limited to patently social aspects of the agroecological agenda, but bears relevance in every dimension of agroecology. Yet, issues related to gender have commanded relatively little attention in the agroeocological literature. In this paper, we review HLPE’s 13 defining principles of agroecology through a feminist lens to demonstrate the ways in which human dimensions and power dynamics are interwoven in every principle. Through this analysis, we demonstrate that a feminist approach is instrumental to establish a socially just and ecologically sustainable agroecological transition.

ISHS X International Symposium on Banana: ISHS - ProMusa Symposium on Agroecological Approaches to Promote Innovative Banana Production Systems Recovering banana production in bunchy top-affected areas in Sub-Saharan Africa: developing gender-responsive approaches

This paper evaluates the determinants of decision-making in relation to the production of four crops (banana, cassava, potato, and sweet potato). Understanding the division of labor and decision-making in crop management may lead to designing better interventions targeted at improving efficiency in smallholder agriculture. In 2014, the research team conducted a quantitative household survey with heads of households involving 261 women and 144 men in Burundi and 184 women and 222 men in Rwanda. Most of the decisions and labor provision during the production of both cash crops (potato and banana) and food crops (sweet potato and cassava) were done jointly by men and women in male-headed households. Higher values for ‘credit access’, ‘land size’, and ‘farming as the main occupation of the household head’ increased the frequency of joint decision-making in male-headed households. A decline in the amount of farm income reduced the participation of men as decision-makers. A reduction in total household income and proximity to the market was correlated with joint decision-making. Gender norms also contributed to the lower participation of women in both decision-making and labor provision in banana and potato cultivation. Although a large proportion of decisions were made jointly, women perceived that men participate more in decision-making processes within the household during the production of cash crops. Increased participation by women in decision-making will require an active and practical strategy which can encourage adjustments to existing traditional gender norms that recognize men as the main decision-makers at both the household and community levels.

To increase understanding of agricultural intensification processes over time and their sustainability, we studied dimensions of sustainability in the context of ongoing expansion of intensive, commercial mono-cropping of banana in Southwestern Uganda. In our approach we considered five dimensions of sustainability: economic, agricultural productivity, environment, social and human. We compared farming systems in 1998 and 2018 and integrated a gender lens. A total of four focus group discussions, two group interviews and fifteen individual interviews (8m / 7f) were conducted, complemented with a discourse analysis of newspaper articles. Results show that although intensification of banana production increased the average income level indicating improvement in the economic dimension, it did not yield sustainable outcomes in the other dimensions. The integrated analysis of five dimensions of sustainability illuminated aspects often neglected in assessment studies or policy-making around agricultural intensification, in particular socio-economic and gender dynamics. We further recognized that the observed local trends are part of a set of patterns that take place throughout the world. We conclude that to advance sustainable development, stakeholders should move away from the current over-emphasis on economic values prioritizing the individual, and that avoiding patterns of unsustainable development requires broadening to environmental and community values.

Agricultural innovation is considered paramount in solving poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition in the global south and notably in the East-African highlands. However, processes of change surrounding innovation in agriculture, and potential gender differences in their impacts, are often poorly understood. This paper resorts to principles from Farming Systems Research (FSR) and social gender analysis to study agricultural innovation processes and increase the understanding of the differential ways men and women engage with and are impacted by agricultural innovation(s). We analyze qualitative data from six Focus Group Discussions conducted in each of the two study communities located in Central and Western Uganda. These data focus on the most important agricultural innovations as perceived and assessed by men and women in their community. We list and discuss these most important innovations and further zoom in on one innovation per site: “Use of herbicides in maize production” in Central Uganda and “New agronomic practices for intensified highland banana production” in Western Uganda. Results clearly show that women's and men's domains are not separated as superficially might appear. Women and men have both separate and joint interests and adoption of an innovation by one gender, will affect the other too. The effects are multifold, with positive and negative elements. Women's ability to innovate is constrained as compared to men because gender norms limit women's agency in relation to mobility and financial independence amongst others. The two innovations studied were found to alter some gender roles and relations but did not unambiguously contribute to increasing gender equality.

Finding out how to scale innovations successfully is high on the agendas of researchers, practitioners and policy makers involved in agricultural development. New approaches and methodologies seek to better address related complexities, but none of them include a systematic perspective on the role of capacity in (partnerships for) scaling innovations. We posit that this has left an important topic insufficiently addressed in relation to partnerships for scaling innovations. The need to address this gap became apparent in the context of the CGIAR Roots, Tubers, and Bananas (RTB) Scaling Fund initiative. This paper presents how we explored ways forward in relation to this by combining three methodological approaches: The Five-Capabilities, Scaling Readiness, and the Multi-Level Perspective on socio-technical innovation. This combined approach—dubbed Capacity for Scaling Innovations (C4SI)—was applied in three projects related to scaling innovations for sweet potato, cassava and banana, involving five countries in Africa. It then discusses implications for a partners-in-scaling perspective, the contribution of scaling innovations to sustainable development, the importance of research organisations considering their own capabilities in partnerships for scaling, and the extent to which C4SI was helpful in the three cases—for example, in decision making. The paper concludes that a capacity perspective on the scaling of innovations should be an essential part of a ‘science of scaling’. Finally, it provides recommendations for using the approach or parts of it in research and intervention practice for scaling, pointing in particular to the need for context-specific adaptation.