Agnes Quisumbing*, Elizabeth Bryan, Quinn Bernier, and Chiara Kovarik

*(a.quisumbing@@cgiar.org)

Gender differences in awareness and

adoption of climate-smart agricultural

practices in Bangladesh

Gender and agriculture in Bangladesh

• Similar to other parts of South Asia, where patrilineal and patriarchal systems prevail, women in Bangladesh have much lower levels of literacy, schooling, assets, and land than men (and

this is also true in our study sites)

• As a result of lower education and other assets, women in Bangladesh earn half of what men earn

• Production system involves joint (male and female) farming on family farms; women rarely recognized as farmers, and seldom are targeted by extension services

Recognizing women as agricultural

producers

• Although still lower than men’s, women’s participation in agricultural employment has been increasing.

• Women tend to be involved in homestead rather than field crop production.

• Women are often more involved in vegetable and small livestock production, because it does not violate social norms of female seclusion Source: BBS, Labour Force Survey, 199/00, 2002/03 and

2005/06

Bangladesh CCAFS

sites

Two different potential types of watermanagement systems:

--Bagerhat: medium saline, less potential for groundwater access; easier to reach, so more diversification options- Satkhira: highly saline but with higher potential for shallow groundwater use due to less salinity intrusion into groundwater; more difficult to reach but borders West Bengal

Men and women get information from different

sourcesMales Females Significance

level

Agricultural information sources

Government extension services 0.28 0.07 ***

Agricultural service providers 0.04 0.00 ***Farmer field days 0.12 0.01 ***Group-based information sources

NGO 0.14 0.10Community meetings 0.03 0.00 ***

Farmer orgs, coops, CBOs 0.02 0.01Informal sources

Family members 0.13 0.05 ***Neighbors 0.50 0.81 ***Media, internet, and schools

Radio 0.72 0.88 ***Television 0.58 0.32 ***

Newspaper/bulletin 0.87 0.55 ***Schools/teacher 0.15 0.04 ***Cell phone 0.02 0.01Internet 0.02 0.01Traditional sources

Traditional forecasters, indigenous knowledge, etc. 0.55 0.39 0.000

Awareness and adoption of CSA practices relevant

at the farm level in Bangladesh

Whether respondent is aware of practice

Whether respondent adopted practice in past year

if they were aware of it

Male Female p-value Male Female p-value

Planting stress-tolerant varieties 0.03 0.02 * 0.31 0.17

Improved high yielding varieties 0.62 0.42 *** 0.55 0.48

Irrigation 0.97 0.97 0.62 0.55 *

Applying crop residue 0.56 0.54 0.42 0.40

Composting 0.79 0.70 *** 0.37 0.40

Livestock manure management 0.62 0.60 0.48 0.33 ***

More efficient fertilizer use 0.88 0.56 *** 0.83 0.64 ***

Cover cropping 0.14 0.09 ** 0.02 0.03

No till/minimum tillage 0.31 0.27 0.06 0.04

Improved livestock feed management 0.31 0.26 0.53 0.67 **

Integrated pest management 0.79 0.65 *** 0.51 0.48

Analyzing adoption of CSA practices, conditional

on awareness

• Analyzing determinants of adoption needs to take into account selectivity: men and women who are more aware of these technologies may have different characteristics, better access to information, compared to those who don’t

• Approach is very similar to Kenya paper that uses a Heckman two-step procedure– First stage: analyze determinants (correlates) of awareness

– Second stage: analyze determinants (correlates) of adoption, conditional on awareness

Correlates of awareness: summary--1

• Women less likely to know about CSA practices in general, controlling for other characteristics

• More schooling and household assets=>knowledge about CSA practices; individual asset shares not that important

• Total household assets increase awareness of 3/10 practices, but household nonland assets decrease awareness of irrigation (less invested in agriculture). These effects are small in magnitude

• Household livestock ownership increases awareness of composting and cover cropping, consistent with the practice of composting with manure and using fodder crops as cover crops.

• Households who have titled land more likely to be aware of crop residue application and minimum tillage practices; secure tenure important for practices that yield returns over a longer period of time.

Correlates of awareness: summary--2

• Importance of information sources: spouse—not always reliable. This constrains women more than men

• Agricultural service providers and extension less important compared to informal and family networks, media, internet, schools, and even traditional sources.

• Need for extension services to improve their outreach about CSA practices in general, and to women in particular, given that information is not perfectly shared within the household.

Correlates of adoption: summary--1

• Taking awareness is taken into account, women appear to be equally likely to adopt most CSA practices

• Household wealth is a more important determinant of CSA adoption than individual ownership of livestock and nonlivestock assets--consistent with the jointness of family farming in Bangladesh

• Wealthier farmers, in terms of landholding size, also more likely to practice CSA.

Correlates of adoption: summary--2

• Previous experience of shocks increases adoption of CSA, but knowledge of shocks is less important than general knowledge of agriculture in stimulating CSA adoption

• Farmers may not consider CSA practices as ways to reduce adverse effects of climatic shocks, particularly if these shocks are outside their immediate control, or they think that these events are too severe to be counteracted with these practices.

• Scope for messaging—but note differences in perceptions of time horizons

Discussion and policy implications

• There are gender gaps in awareness and adoption, but conditional on awareness, gender gaps in adoption are less stark

• Implication: improve reach of CSA-related information; improve traditional agricultural extension systems’ messaging

• Agricultural extension systems need to reach women farmers!

• Also explore other ways of disseminating information that may be less biased against women: radio, social networks, ICT (phone and internet)

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