YamJams Gender201602
Contents
- 1 Increasing the engagement and active participation of women and youth in the poultry value chain
- 2 Summary notes
- 3 1. What is the messaging around ownership structures of the program assets (chicks) and outputs (live birds, cash from sales, the chest thumping afterwards) within the household and beyond?
- 4 2. Is the farmer free to do what he/she wills with the chickens post-delivery? What should the remedy for the project team be, in case a farmer doesn’t comply with laid down procedures?
- 5 3. To what end use does the ACGG project expect to put the outputs/outcomes (re-investment, passing along, sale, new inventory, household consumption, etc.)?
- 6 Full notes
Increasing the engagement and active participation of women and youth in the poultry value chain
The notes of this YamJam are on this Yammer page: [[1]]//
Intro: Concept note by Rehema Mwateba and Denis Mujibi: Smallholder family poultry is an integral component of the livelihoods of poor rural households, and is likely to continue to play this role for the foreseeable future (FAO, 2008a). Approximately 85% of all households in sub-Saharan Africa keep chicken under either free range or extensive system, with women owning 70% of all birds. Thus, the link between poultry interventions and improvement of women’s (and entire households) social, nutritional and economic status seem fairly direct.
It is not! Women hardly benefit from their poultry farming endeavors due to systemic bottlenecks that plague the poultry value chain. But it is not only women who are victims of the circumstances. The youth are also missing out on perks from the poultry industry.
About 44% of the total population of sub-Saharan Africa is below the age of 16 years, making it the youngest region in the world. It is predicted that by 2050, 60% of Africa’s population will reside in cities. This presents a challenge given current unemployment levels, which will likely get worse based on current job creation trends. Youth comprise 40% of the total unemployed in Africa, and 70% of them live in rural areas, where seemingly there are opportunities to practice agriculture. However, youth are barely involved in agriculture, causing the face of African agriculture to be quite elderly.
The participation of women and youth in the poultry value chain is limited. Women are mostly primary producers, and are rarely involved in the upper levels of the value chain where most added value is created and higher returns obtained. Youth participation in the VC is almost non-existent, given a myriad of challenges that limit entry into the value chain.
Consequently, given the increasing demand for chicken, how do we ensure that women and youth are: 1. More connected to markets and new income streams? 2. Able to overcome value chain entry barriers? 3. Able to keep more of the proceeds obtained from sale of the birds or products? 4. Able to participate actively and frequently in the activities of community Innovation Platforms without being disruptive or allowing men to take over their positions/voice? 5. Making food choices that positively impact the nutritional status of their households?
As we start the research components of the project, complete stakeholder buy-in will be critical for success. As such, clear communication is needed during the field sensitization rounds, to ensure common understanding of project objectives and long term nature of the value chain transformation agenda, even beyond the lifetime of the project. As such it is imperative that answers to these question be available, apriori: 1. What is the messaging around ownership structures of the program assets (chicks) and outputs (live birds, cash from sales, the chest thumping afterwards) within the household and beyond? 2. Is the farmer free to do what he/she wills with the chickens post-delivery? What should the remedy for the project team be, in case a farmer doesn’t comply with laid down procedures? 3. To what end use does the ACGG project expect to put the outputs/outcomes (re-investment, passing along, sale, new inventory, household consumption, etc.)?
Summary notes
1. What is the messaging around ownership structures of the program assets (chicks) and outputs (live birds, cash from sales, the chest thumping afterwards) within the household and beyond?
- We first need to understand ownership structures in the communities we work with and in the process provide the human rights perspectives of ownership. The baseline (in Nigeria) shows that there are more men than women owning a house.
- The idea is not to sideline men in the process but to help them elevate their self-esteem and confidence in the ability of women ie. turning men into advocacy drivers and keep a woman-centered approach that doesn't alienate communities (and particularly men). Reverse psychology as it was used in Nigeria's early efforts on family planning could be used.
- Following a participatory process, the advocates could be men or women.
- The idea is also to use IPs to co-create these solutions.
- It is important that village leadership not be associated with farmer selection to avoid favoritism. The farmer selection needs to be random, but some level of engagement from community leadership during delivery could be an interesting form of social incentives.
- Right now, apart from Rehema there is no gender expert and we (project team) should consider forming a small committee to focus on this and ensure that we are continuously working towards gender at all levels.
2. Is the farmer free to do what he/she wills with the chickens post-delivery? What should the remedy for the project team be, in case a farmer doesn’t comply with laid down procedures?
- Clearly ACGG participant farmers are not free to do whatever they want. They have to comply with various things:
Farmers cannot sell male chickens before a specified age; They cannot sell female chickens before the end of the on-farm test (18 months); They're willing to get all the chickens in the household vaccinated for certain diseases, They provide supplements (amount is not predetermined); They build night shelters for their chickens, if they have none; They cooperate with enumerators and supervisors They cannot remove identification numbers (wingtags) from their birds.
- Apart from these, a lot of the decision making will remain with the farmer as we want to test the birds in a system that is realistic for the smallholders we are targeting
- If they don't comply, different options are up: 1) Remove them from the experiment (but this will reduce the sample size of participant households in a village) 2. Subject them to a small fine (charge them with some amount of money according to pre-established by-laws, the money will go to the community coffer).
- Therefore it's important to train and sensitize them before the start of the chicken performance evaluation - to build their ownership in the project. They need to understand why there are these boundaries/constraints. It should be made explicit to them in the simplest way during community meetings and perhaps they should even contribute ways to deal with non-compliance.
- In Nigeria, the idea is to let farmers agree to the terms and conditions and to get the approval on the bird delivery from the Community leader/king/clergy. This creates some peer pressure system. Approaching communities in that way makes sure they follow established systems of compliance and order. At any rate households will be randomized and not subject to the village heads.
- In Ethiopia this role could be taken up by more formal administrative structures (e.g. Chairperson, Manager and militias at the Kebele) along with extension experts from the local kebele agricultural office. This pushes farmers to conform to the project. But involvement of these officials has to be balanced or can be experienced as a top-down approach and could lead to a) reducing technology adoption and/or b) reducing the quality of data gathered (pleasing the ears of the officials).
- In Tanzania, working with extension agents and village administration should work, but working with local village leaders is also important. The role of the clergy is less clear.
- During the baseline study work, these local figures of authority informed the selected households that they were like ambassadors for the village so their action or inaction would determine the influx of the proposed developmental project to the village... we want to make participating farmers feel responsible and their performance in the first batch delivery of the birds will influence how whether they get the subsequent batches. Also as they comply to the guidelines by taking appropriate care of the birds they get more opportunities to further collaborate and partner with the project and others"
- For all, it would be great to have a consent form for farmers to sign, explaining procedures and compliance rules. Perhaps even some kind of contract mechanism (whereby the project team and the farmer will each keep a contract copy)
- These ideas need to be double checked in the innovation platform documentation.
- And final guidelines should be shared with all farmers before chicken delivery.
3. To what end use does the ACGG project expect to put the outputs/outcomes (re-investment, passing along, sale, new inventory, household consumption, etc.)?
Rehema (only respondent) suggested: "towards project end the villagers should commit themselves to economically uplift neighboring villagers".
Final question: What was your experience with this #genderyj? - Would you want to have another such YamJam? - What did you like about it that we should keep in the future? - What didn't you like or would you suggest we change if we do another YamJam? Jasmine (only respondent) mentioned she liked the YamJam conversation and ideas and she'd like to have another one. It was good to have a content moderator (Rehema) but we need more participation from everyone and should consider involving SNCs in the next YamJam.
Full notes
[https:www.yammer.com/acgg/users/1565040291| Rehema Mwateba] do you want to start focusing on the question #1: What is the messaging around ownership structures of the program assets (chicks) and outputs (live birds, cash from sales, the chest thumping afterwards) within the household and beyond?
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It is important that village leadership not be associated with farmer selection to avoid favoritism. The farmer selection needs to be random, but some level of engagement from community leadership during delivery could be an interesting form of social incentives. Thoughts from others?
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In my opinion, ACGG participant farmers are not free to do whatever they want with the chickens. They are expected to conform to certain norms. For instance, farmers 1. cannot sale male chickens before a specified age; 2. cannot sell female chickens before the end of the on-farm test (18 months); 3. be willing to get all the chickens in the household vaccinated for certain diseases, 4. provide supplements (amount is not predetermined); 5. build night shelters for their chickens, if they have none; 6. cooperate with enumerators and supervisors 7. not remove identification numbers (wingtags) from their birds. In case a farmer does not comply, there are two options: 1. Remove them from the experiment (but this will reduce the sample size of participant households in a village) 2. Subject them to a small fine (charge them with some amount of money according to pre-established by-laws, the money will go to the community coffer). The best thing we can do is to sensitize and train them before the start of the chicken performance evaluation in order to nurture a sense of ownership towrds the project.
Jasmine Bruno Certainly, the households will be randomized and not subject to the village heads, Thanks for the confirmation [https:www.yammer.com/acgg/users/1543256607| Oladeji Bamidele] . I think this is really important for the objectives of the project and to avoid the favoritism that [https:www.yammer.com/acgg/users/1565040291| Rehema Mwateba] cautions against. If we have done the critical step of randomizing, I agree that collaborating on such local solutions is valuable. Is this idea captured in IP documentation that we can share with all?
We all understand why the answer to this question is NO. But do the farmers understand this "why"? If they do, then we will have more people following the rules. It should be made explicit to them in the simplest way during community meetings. In fact they should also be engaged to propose ways of punishing non-compliance.
Said Mbaga
Dear all. for Tz local leaders (village) are very instrumental. im not sure about clergymens. we will explore all opportunities
agreed! The community platforms are key for this understanding. Also, the consent forms/process, and furthermore, we are exploring a contract mechanism. The farmers will be supplying time during data collection, labor in managing the birds, and a number of resources such as supplemental feed in exchange for the birds and management training. The project team will keep a copy of the contract and a copy of the contract will stay with the farmer. We want them to understand the commitment we are requesting, and we want to make sure the farmer is content with the arrangement/exchange.
Also, the NO is around a few specific points-sale of birds at certain ages, night shelter, etc. Rather, a lot of the decision making will remain with the farmer as we want to test the birds in a system that is realistic for the smallholders we are targeting. #genderyj it is certain that not all the households in the village will be willing to confirm to the guidelines or minimum standard so that in itself screens out some.. but those who choose to remain will then go through the consent forms...The feed-backs we got from the sensitization during the baseline was that the Village heads/Chief/Clergy informed the selected HHs that they were like ámbassadors for the village so their action or inaction will determine the influx of the proposed developmental project to the village... so for the on-farm too which ever HH is selected is like a representative for the other villagers that were not selected and they will be checking themselves. Said Mbaga support Deji observation
Thank you all for participating until now, and it's going on! I'll post some kind of collated report of the YamJam later this week.
Keep yammering on this page!
Thanks all who did participate. Great ideas and conversation.
- Testing the next YamJam