“Don’t forget about us”

from Women’s Consultation on the Digital Provision of Agro-climate Advisory Services

The historical lack of women’s representation has not only narrowed our collective understanding of the country’s agricultural sector, but it has also been reflected in our development policies, implementation strategies, and how we have tracked our national progress. Although women contribute more than 40% of the labour force in the sector, this oversight has made it less likely for them to receive timely and appropriate advisory and extension services. The inaccessibility of agricultural knowledge tailored to their needs limits their productivity, affecting their income and families’ access to nutritious meals

In 2022, Lersha and its partners have conducted a series of awareness-creation workshops focused on the role of digital agro-climate advisory services on promoting climate change responsive agricultural practices. During each workshop, there was an open session dedicated to women’s consultation on the challenges they are facing due to climate change, and what their advisory needs are. The session was included with the recognition that women are community knowledge keepers, and listening to them is critical to providing context-appropriate solutions. Women farmers’ positive sentiments and eagerness to share their experiences did not only affirm that this approach was pragmatic, but also long overdue.

Currently, women farmers rely on Development Agents (DAs) for advisories, and expressed their established trust with the government-employed agricultural experts. Several women in Bahir Dar pointed out that literacy and phone ownership could be barriers for them to digitally receive agro climate advisory information. They indicated that in-person visits and demonstrations, like the ones they have been receiving the past decades, would be an ideal means to reach them. Another important insight from our conversations was that indigenous knowledge plays a large role in informing their decisions; with localised names for pests and diseases, and traditional remedies to treat them. In Debre Berhan, where farmers expressed their challenges with water supply shortage and soil acidity, women expressed that community groups were a vital support system.

These consultation sessions do not only lend us crucial insights into women farmers’ pain points, we now hold the responsibility to address them. Identifying the activities that women are most engaged with will drive advisory content generation on sub-sectors like growing vegetables, livestock rearing, poultry, and dairy production. Understanding the persisting gender gap in phone ownership and literacy underscores the need for a mixed-delivery approach that utilises in-person engagements and traditional community groups. The presence of rich indigenous knowledge also calls for diligent work to incorporate it into our digital pathway, including knowledge translation aligning local understandings with conventional scientific terminology.