Engendering Agricultural Research
March 22, 2010
Successful development interventions are, by nature, transformative—whether through creating opportunities, new commodities and services, changing the way people do things and the way they perceive and react to change. One might argue that changing the agricultural research and development[1] from male-dominated to gender-equitable is a matter of political correctness or ideology. However, we argue that paying attention to gender is not ideology, but a matter of development effectiveness: we will not be able to meet the food needs of the future population or ensure that productivity translates into improved welfare for the poor unless we take gender into account more seriously in agricultural research and development.