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Gender Checklist: Agriculture : Gender analysis for subsectors
Gender issues in livestock
Key Issues
- What roles do women and men play in livestock husbandry and care in the project area?
- For which aspects of animal care are women mainly responsible, e.g., with which of the following activities are women involved daily or regularly:
- collection and fodder preparation, feeding;
- watering;
- cleaning;
- herding;
- milking, sheaving, or other harvesting activities; or
- care of sick animals?
- How will the project affect the amount of labor men and women spend on livestock care? Will women and men do more work or less?
- If the project involves new productive tasks, will these be done by women or by men? Will the labor have to be shifted from other activities? How will such changes affect women?
- Will the project inputs to livestock development change women’s roles in the overall farming system? How?
- If the care of large livestock is thought to be a responsibility of the men, do women actually do some of the work? How much?
- If commercial livestock production technologies are provided to men, how will women’s traditional workload and responsibilities be affected?
- Will the project create extra work for women? If so, how will they benefit from it?
- Will new livestock production methods or new forms of livestock affect land use? Will they affect women’s access to land?
- Do women have access to the resources (land, credit, capital) to participate in the project and to benefit from the improved stocks, feeds, or other inputs?
- Are women included in processing or marketing cooperatives or in communal projects?
- Do women own the animals they tend, and do they have control over or access to the income derived from the sale of meat, eggs, milk, etc.?
Key Strategies
- Include women among the intended recipientsc of improved animals or other project inputs.
- onsider a project that supports small livestock production as this is often the responsibility of women.
- Consider ways in which time and labor can be used more efficiently in livestock care, without diminishing women’s participation and control.
- Where women and men have separate incomes and separate financial responsibilities, safeguard the normal income sources of women and support new income-earning opportunities for them.
- Provide women with basic veterinary training to protect their livestock.
- Ensure that any training provided is conducted in the village rather than in towns since women’s physical mobility can be an issue.
- Engage NGOs to mobilize and train women in livestock production and marketing.
- Ensure that all technical inputs and services are provided to women.
Box 11 illustrates the gender issues considered in a typical livestock project.
Box 11: Participatory Livestock Project in Bangladesh
The project preparatory technical assistance identified several gender concerns and issues such as the lack of attention paid to women’s overwhelming role in livestock production and their lack of access to extension, credit, and markets. It demonstrated that women do much more significant work in small-livestock raising than men, and yet are largely ignored in the training and extension programs of government agencies. Such programs are held in central locations, preventing the participation of women because of their lack of mobility. Women also lack access to credit which they need to expand their livestock holdings. Nongovernment organizations (NGOs) have organized extension and training programs in villages where women’s participation has been very high. NGOs have likewise demonstrated ways in which women can be provided access to microfinance for purchasing livestock and equipment, and access to technical services even in villages not covered by government veterinary services.
The project has addressed gender concerns in its design bytreating women as significant economic actors in their own right. Seventy to eighty percent of primary beneficiaries will be women. Microcredit will be supplied through NGOs to 340,000 households, particularly female-headed households, and landless women, for smallholder poultry, beef-fattening, and goat-rearing enterprises. Village-based extension services and training will be provided to women by NGOs. About 10,800 women will be trained and provided with credit to establish village-based feed supplies, vaccination, and marketing services.
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