Impacts of AKST on Development and Sustainability Goals | 211

security is growing as men migrate to the city, or neighboring rural areas, in search of paid jobs leaving the women to do the farming and to provide food for the family (FAO, 1998b; Song, 1999).

At the institutional and national levels, policies that discriminate against women and marginalized people affect them in terms of access to and control over land, technology, credit, markets, and agricultural productivity.

Goals
L, S
Certainty
B
Range of Impacts
-2 to +3
Scale
G
Specificity
Common occurrence

Women's contribution to food security is not well reflected in ownership and access to services (Bullock, 1993; FAO, 2005c: FAO, 2006c). Fewer than 10% of women farmers in India, Nepal and Thailand own land; while women farmers in five African countries received less than 10% of the credit provided to their male counterparts. The poor availability of credit for women limits their ability to purchase seeds, fertilizers and other inputs needed to adopt new farming techniques. Although this is slowly being redressed by special programs and funds created to address women's particular needs, women's access to land continues to pose problems in most countries. In Africa, women tend to be unpaid laborers on their husbands' land and to cultivate separate plots in their own right at the same time. However, while women may work their own plots, they may not necessarily have ownership and thus their rights may not survive the death of their spouse (Bullock, 1993). In the case of male migration and de facto women heads of households, conflicts may arise as prevailing land rights rarely endow women with stable property or user rights (IFAD, 2004). Traditionally, irrigation agencies have tended to exclude women and other marginalized groups from access to water -for example, by requiring land titles to obtain access to irrigation water (Van Koppen, 2002). Explicitly targeting women farmers in water development schemes and giving them a voice in water management is essential for the success of poverty alleviation programs. There are insufficient labor-saving technologies to enable women's work to be more effective in crop and livestock production. Armed conflict, migration of men in search of paid employment and rising mortality rates attributed to HIV/AIDS, have led to a rise in the number of female-headed households and an additional burden on women. Women remain severely disadvantaged in terms of their access to commercial activities (Dixon et al., 2001). In the short-term, making more material resources available to women, such as land, credit and technology at the micro level is mostly a question of putting existing policies into practice. Changes at the macro-level, however, will depend on a more favorable gender balance at all levels of the power structure. In Africa, the creation of national women's institutions has been a critically important step in ensuring that women's needs and constraints are put on the national policy agenda (FAO, 1990). The introduction of conventions, agreements, new legislation, policies and programs has helped to increase women's access to, and control over, productive resources. However, rural people are frequently unaware of women's legal rights and have little legal recourse if rights are violated (FAO, 1995).

 

Given women's role in food production and provision, any set of strategies for sustainable food security must address women's limited access to productive resources. Ensuring equity in women's rights to land, property, capital assets, wages and livelihood opportunities would undoubtedly impact positively on the issue.

Historically, women and other marginalized groups have had less access to formal information and communication systems associated with agricultural research and extension.

Goals
L, S
Certainty
B
Range of Impacts
-3 to 0
Scale
G
Specificity
Wide applicability

Worldwide, there are relatively few professional women in agriculture (Das, 1995; FAO, 2004a). In Africa, men continue to dominate the agricultural disciplines in secondary schools, constitute the majority of the extension department personnel, and are the primary recipients of extension services. Men's enrolment in agricultural disciplines at the university level is higher than women's and is also increasing (FAO, 1990). Only 15% of the world's agricultural extension agents are women (FAO, 2004a). Only one-tenth of the scientists working in the CGIAR system are women (Rathgeber, 2002) and women rarely select agricultural courses in universities.

3.2.4 Relationships between AKST, coordination and regulatory processes among multiple stakeholders

The interactions between AKST and coordination processes among stakeholders are critically important for sustainability. Technical changes in the form of inventions, strengthened innovation systems and adoption of indigenous production systems in AKST are dependent on the effectiveness of coordination among stakeholders involved in natural resources management, production, consumption and marketing, e.g., farmers, extension, research, traders (Moustier et al., 2006; Temple et al., 2006). Failure to recognize this leads to poor adoption potential of the research outputs (Röling, 1988; World Bank, 2007c). Scaling-up requires articulation between stakeholders acting at multiple levels of organizational from the farmer to international organizations and markets (Caron et al., 1996; Lele, 2004). AKST can contribute by identifying the coordination processes involved in scaling-up, but this is now recognized to involve more than the typical micro-macro analysis of academic disciplines. AKST also contributes to understanding coordination mechanisms supporting change, adaptation and technological innovation, through approaches that connect experimental/non-experimental disciplines, basic/applied research, and especially, technical, organizational, and economic variables (Griffon, 1994; Cerf et al., 2000).

3.2.4.1 Coordination and partnership toward greater collective interest

AKST affects sustainability through collective action and partnership with new stakeholders (e.g., agroforestry sector) that strengthen farmer organizations and their ability to liaise with policy-makers, and support the design of new organizations (e.g., water users associations).