International Women's Day 2023 - Digital apps and drones in livestock farming

Where does digital technology fit in with livestock farming? Can flying animal vaccines in by drone to remote regions help address gender inequality? Find out on this special episode of The Boma!

In this podcast, we hear about the barriers to digital technology and farming difficulties that women face, then follow how ILRI and the CGIAR are working to close that divide from the example of an innovative vaccine-delivery project in Ghana.

We hear from Agnes Loriba, program lead and Ghana project manager at CARE International, Immaculate Omondi, a gender research economist at ILRI, and Nicoline de Haan, lead of the CGIAR GENDER Impact platform. How do they identify 'gender gaps' in farming and communities - and what does it take to close them?

Read more here

The Livestock Vaccine Innovation Fund is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), Global Affairs Canada (GAC), and Canada’s International Development Research Centre

Script written by Annabel Slater

Transcript

Welcome back to The Boma. This episode is dedicated to International Women’s Day 2023, and this year’s theme is ‘DigitALL- digital innovation and technology for gender equality. So how is digital innovation supposed to help women livestock farmers in lower- to middle-income countries? And what are the specific struggles women in those countries face?

Well, let’s focus in on the upper east region of Ghana, close to the Sahara, there is no rainfall for nearly 7 months a year. Farmers there depend on their livestock for income and nutrition.

Traditionally, sheep and cattle are considered men’s livestock, while women manage goats and chickens. Now, diseases are a problem for all livestock- farmers, but they can affect women’s livestock particularly badly. An outbreak of Newcastle disease in chickens, or peste de petit ruminants – PPR – in goats, can kill a farmer’s entire flock or herd.

There are effective vaccines for these diseases. But circumstances mean that most women aren’t able to use them. 

In this episode, we profile a project that has increased vaccine use by 500% - and helped to build more equality for women farmers.

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First, in areas like these, why aren’t women farmers using vaccines?

Some of the challenges are social, others technical. ILRI, the social enterprise company Cowtribe Ltd, and the NGO Care International have been working to overcome these challenges through a combination of digital technology and community discussions.

Agnes Loriba, manager of the Ghana project for CARE International, explains more about the differences between men and women farmers.

AGNES:  Women are not able to vaccinate due to the number of challenges which I would outline, One is even the recognition of a woman as a livestock keeper. And so that's the embedded perception that the man is the livestock keeper. And so, for instance, when a veterinary officer comes to the household to run a vaccination exercise, he's looking for the man because their mind is only that the farmer keeps the livestock.

And so if the man is not available and the woman, then won’t have access to information about the fact that this vaccination exercise on going and be able to have their animals vaccinated and they are also norms around the fact that a woman is not supposed to declare ownership of her livestock. This is considered disrespectful because the man is the head of the household and the woman is under his control.vc 

So whatever belongs to the woman equally belongs to the man. And so she cannot exercise that control and decision making over the the livestock.

There are also very practical challenges around mobility. A lot of these in vet's office is that service providers are these districts, capital, women, villages.

They have more limited mobility. If you go to the village, the town, the number of people who have motorbikes, the number of people who are bicycles, the people who are able to move regularly to the district capital is the men. And so they have great access to the vet's offices, access to information about vaccination and benefits of vaccination.

Digital innovation has been used overcome this. The team have built an app aimed at women farmers, which provides them with information about vaccines, when to use them, and best of all, they can order vaccines for delivery. What’s more – the vaccines are flown in by drones.

AGNES:

this project really demonstrates the ability of technology to cut through some of the barriers that women face.

I think this cuts through the barrier around the fact that the woman needs to vaccinate only and through her husband or with permission from her husband or when he has gone interested in having their their livestock in the household being vaccinated. 

Also within drone technology these vaccines get to at very close to where these women are located. And so it also cuts through the barrier of giving mobility for women. So a woman doesn't need to get to a district vet to come in vaccinate the animals. The vaccines are delivered. The women are trained with the skills to be able to do this by themselves.

And so it's practically brings them close to the vaccines and also builds confidence and empowering for all women. So just by receiving a message on her phone, she's able to access information about what disease is prevalent at what time and what she needs to do to to protect animals.

So drones can get vaccines to rural, poorly connected areas fast, which is also crucial for vaccines which would need to be stored at cold temperatures. And the app also lets farmers order the exact quantities of vaccines they need, and provide information to women about when and how to use the vaccines.

But you can’t just introduce digital technology to a community and expect that to be the answer. 

Immaculate Omondi is a gender research economist at ILRI, working within the CGIAR Digital Innovation Initiative.

She explains more:

IMMA:

it's not just the digital technologies themselves, but it can it does not work alone.

It has to work in in tandem with other measures or interventions that bridge the risk gender restrictions. 

If we only use the drones alone, it would not have really worked because then these women would not be able to interact with male animal health providers. So we needed the women providers to be there, and then we needed the community to the elders to be able to influence this kind of thought, to catalyze the relationship between the technology, the animal health providers and women receiving the US, the the, the in the vaccine nations.

Handling gender norms is so much more complex than just bringing in technology. Immaculate talks us through the process.

IMMA:

we know that some gender, gender norms are dynamic and not very, very I mean, they change for different reasons and they change to something else or they actually some of them are actually kind of no longer observed, but So so with the notion that these are not static, they're done then dynamic.

We come in and assess this this situation and say, look, what are those gender norms?

And then what are the benefits and the risk frictions that they the impact of this norms

The next step is to say, okay, once we know the norms that we want to work with, how then do we start engaging with the community to let them discuss? So it's a community discussion where you're discussing with them and saying, okay, why are these there and why who who does and why do they do that? So that we understand, but they also get a perspective around these norms with that is the first step that changes, makes people start the change process because you become aware of these restrictions, because some people are not even aware that this are really causing some impacts that would have been not desired.

The next level is now to engage after engaging with these communities, then what do you do as as a as a as maybe an intervention? You could say, okay, this gender norm is more about because people are not informed.

Getting that community support was a really important aspect of the project, one that Care International was deeply involved with.

AGNES:

We also do a lot of work with community leaders. So community leaders here include the chiefs and the women's leaders. They and religious leaders or pastors, imams for communities that we have Muslims.

Also involves training male and female gender champions and so the community leaders, once we have these reflective sessions, they the Community agrees on an action plan and so the Community leaders support and monitor implementation of this action plans towards addressing the key norm issues. We also have the male and female gender champions that are treated in the transformative sets of communities. These community gender champion support in mobilizing and facilitating the gender dialogue and social analysis and action sessions in the villages.

Men from the communities and both community leaders form the gender champions also supporting addressing any potential backlash. That's may happen in these communities because dealing and working with such norms that have been inbuilt in these communities for a very long time and may come with some resistance. So happiness structure at the community that's enables community members manage many potential backlash is important.

Having done this, how has the vaccine delivery project been received?

AGNES: So the response has been very positive vaccine uptake has increased, I should say by uh, by over five, over, yeah, over 500 %.

And this also has a lot of interests that has been generated both by female farmers and the men.

They’ve also seen a drop in the cost of vaccines, because the cost of transport – previously done by road - has fallen.

Immaculate adds that digital tools like social media can help to inform people.

IMMA: The process of change likely to you can use different tools, for instance, social media, you can start giving messages, showcasing role models and saying, hey, here is a successful young woman who is a veterinarian working in a very remote area and actually riding a motorbike.

You know which community might say, Oh no, a woman should not ride motorbike, but here is a woman riding a motorbike. She's young and she is making it. So that starts changing their the community's feeling like, oh yeah, if someone else had their daughter, they would say, Oh, I would like my daughter to be like this young lady who we've seen so slowly they they start changing their perception because that's the point you start with.

The digital divide – the gap between skills and access for women, compared to men - is one of the concepts behind this year’s International Women’s Day theme. But - why does digital technology even matter for farming?

Imma: 

 I think this is something that is now becoming very common knowledge that digital technologies can actually improve productivity, it can improve profit ability, and it can also be used to manage food risks around food and land and water systems. Yeah, So this is very important to farmers because then they are able to achieve what they would want to achieve. 

Looking at especially areas around the global South, we find that the digital digital transition, much as it has potential benefits these days, it's not equally distributed in some cases. And that could be, as I mentioned earlier, rural versus urban, where you find that people who are living in rural areas have maybe lower access to these digital technologies based on the infrastructures and also based on the income levels compared to urban people.

As for how bad the digital divide is? Well. In lower- and middle-income countries, women are much less likely to own phones than men. Women are 16% less likely to use mobile internet, and 7 percent less likely to own a phone. That's around 372 million women who don’t have mobile phones. 

This is the case even when men and women have the same levels of education, income, literacy and employment, suggesting that other issues are at play. Such as discrimination and social norms.

Imma: In gender, we have women on the other end who might be constrained in different ways, including socio and gender norms that restricts them into participating into in these digital technologies. For instance.  You take a case of a woman who is living in the farm and she has the roles and duties of a typical woman in the rural area. Clean the dishes, fetch water, fetch firewood. 

So that kind of roles and also norms some some norms that maybe define what a woman should do and what a man should do could also be very restrictive in different areas.

 Another thing is also the education divide, where you find that in some communities some social scientists is still value boy child education against compared to a girl.

Child education. So the literacy levels of women tend to be lower than compared to to the to to men. And that also affects the the adoption of digital technologies. And this, all in all, brings in the issue of digital divide that we really would like to be able to reach.

The UN Women’s Gender Snapshot 2022 report says women’s exclusion from the digital world has shaved $1 trillion from the gross domestic product of low- and middle-income countries in the last 10 years. And without taking action, this loss will grow to $1.5 trillion by 2025.

But, as this year’s International Women’s Day highlights, the digital divide is not impassable.

Immaculate explains how she assesses the digital divide in communities.

IMMA: when you're talking of specific technologies, then you need to go to the ground and measure and say, okay, we have this set of technologies that apply in this area, but who are the users?

Who are the providers? What is the difference between them? Who provides what and where? And that gives us first hand information in terms of what exists and what does not exist and the capacities this kills, the knowledge of the people and even the tools that they are using. Do they have access to mobile phones? Do they have access to Internet, for instance?

So we use that. And as researchers, we are keen to really getting empirical information. So we use surveys and to go down and really drill down to the data and get some evidence on this digital divide.[SA(8] 

And the success of the vaccine project in Ghana shows that it is possible to help communities change their conventions around gender, and that in so doing they can improve the lives of women and their livestock, which of course benefits whole families and communities.

Gender research across the different CGIAR centres is highlighted by the Gender Impact Platform. The Platform is headquartered here at ILRI, and its leader is Nicoline de Haan. She explains further why the role of women in farming is often overlooked, in lower to middle-income countries.

NICOLINE: Farming is usually done in a very different way than a lot of other sectors, i.e. a lot of it is informal work. So based on a family, a family provides the work for the for the farm and the so it's not often commodified. So that often means that people have to jump in to do things in agriculture, and that's how agriculture stays alive, in contrast to a lot of other sectors where it's actually an income or a wage.

Labor or agriculture is not like that, especially when we talk about smallholder usually the wife or the woman on the farm actually does quite a lot and jumps in a lot of places and even has her own parts in agriculture.

So this is one of those things that a lot of people haven't really thought about because agriculture is one of the oldest traditions that we have in the world, because we've always had to feed ourselves. So we haven't really, you know, unpack that very much and so that's the research we're trying to do, is unpack that, who provides what labor, to what end in agriculture and in smallholder systems.

And I think that's where we've been really been able to show quite clearly that women actually provide a lot of the labor. But like I said, because it's not commodified or not, there's not a price given to that. So what we're trying to argue is, is that, yes, women are in agriculture.

Women do provide a lot of the labor, and since they are providing a lot of the labor is let's give them the tools to do it better and more efficiently and you know that they can spend time on other things, too.

Part of the Platform’s job is to accumulate the evidence – like for example the vaccine delivery project – and work to get that incorporated into policy.

NICOLINE: there are several ways that you could see that happening or that we do it. One is just raising awareness. I mean, just letting people know through the research numbers do matter. I mean, I know policymakers say and everybody says, yeah, well, policy makers, it's also political and whatnot more. But numbers do matter and you need to give good numbers.

And so one of the things we've done a lot with gender is as well as like I say, is to highlight the role women play. And in agriculture, I mean, in livestock, you know, the fact that we say that two thirds of livestock keepers are women has brought people to think, hey, women are actually more important than we thought.

So having that data, I think is very important. So that's one way we we talk to policymakers. But another way for instance, is a project that we're working on that has been quite interesting and quite important is having is looking at at a national level. Also at global level, we've done a list on a global level, but looking at a national, a country level, where are some hotspots of gender inequities happening?

Nicoline has some ideas about how we could reach the hallowed ground – a world without gender inequality.

NICOLINE: 

I think there are two levels that we really need to work closely with, and one is at the household level, I mean, with the fathers.

So the fathers actually give the girls in the household the confidence. Also the mothers.

It's also actually, you know, the president the president also needs to make sure that they lead by example. I mean, and unfortunately, we don't have many female presidents still, but they need to set up the system so that the girls and women can be productive and and, you know, in the society and have everything that they need to have a vibrant life and a vibrant community.

So for me, it's, you know, the two sides you need to make sure that the system works

I mean, and again, when I say to help women, I make the same mistake as everybody else does. We have a whole diversity of women. It's not women are not a homogeneous group. They're very heterogeneous.

But in a lot of things with when we talk about women, it's a lot about systematic problems, you know, systematically that women can't access things because cultures don't expect women to actually own mobile phones. You know, in some cultures, if a woman owns mobile for all, she might be too powerful. She might be able to link up with a boyfriend or whatever.

So those type of things also are there. And so I think, you know, just giving a woman a smartphone or any digital tool is not going to be the only answer. We also need to understand everything around it. 

what are some of the other limitations around using that tool for her? I yes, she can get the information, but she still can't get access to financial services.

Again, one of those areas we need to do more research to understand that nuance.

Thanks for joining me on The Boma. Please leave a review or get in touch with us by our social media. And a happy international women's day! 

JC: Need a word on what Care is, and maybe why we're talking to them. I.e., what their role in the project. [GU1]

JC: This is what I want up front! [GU2]

 [AD(3]Yes--let's find a way to say this sooner. Drones are cool!

That's kind of the problem. Drones are cool, but gender research is 'boring'. However, drones can't work without changing gender norms so communities accept women having some measure of power / control. [S(4]

 [AD(5]Maybe put this info up front? In this episode, We profile a project that has increased vaccine uptake by 500%? [AD(5]

JC: Any change in livelihoods, stock survival etc? If so, would be good to mention. [GU6]

JC: I haven't heard the tape, but unless this is really compelling audio, I wonder whether it couldn't be done much more simply by Annabel? [GU7]

 [SA(8]Could cut out