1. The Role of Gender in Adoption of a
Biofortified Crop: Evidence on Orange-
Fleshed Sweet Potato in Uganda
Julia Behrman, Daniel O. Gilligan, Neha Kumar,
Scott McNiven, Agnes Quisumbing
Presented by
Daniel O. Gilligan, IFPRI
BRAC Centre, Rajendrapur, Bangladesh
04 November 2011

2. Gender and Biofortification
• HarvestPlus is promoting biofortification as a strategy to reduce malnutrition
(e.g., vitamin A deficiency (VAD); iron deficiency)
– strategy: breed staples crops to be a rich source of missing micronutrients
like iron, vitamin A, and zinc
– potential: sustainable in rural areas, self-targeting toward the poor, cost-
effective over time
• Success of biofortification depends on widespread adoption and consumption
of new crop varieties. Gender may be important:
– women provide much of the on-farm labor in Africa and elsewhere and are
primarily responsible for child diets
– there is often a complex dynamic of intrahousehold gender relations for
crop choice (von Braun, Puetz and Webb, 1989)
• New research addresses constraints to crop technology adoption, but with
limited attention to gender (Conley and Udry, 2010; Suri, 2011)

3. An Evaluation of Biofortification in Uganda
• The HarvestPlus Orange-Fleshed Sweet Potato (OFSP) Project
• disseminate provitamin-A-rich OFSP as a strategy to increase vitamin A
intakes and reduce vitamin A deficiency
• OFSP vines given to 10,000 households in Uganda in 2007, followed by
agriculture, nutrition and marketing trainings
• Two strategies: Model 1 (more intensive) and Model 2 (less intensive)
• The IFPRI/Hplus/CIP evaluation
• randomized, controlled trial
• baseline & endline surveys, 2007-2009
• n=1,472 households
• outcomes: OFSP adoption, dietary
intakes of vitamin A, serum retinol
• impact report completed June, 2010
• qualitative study, April-June, 2011

4. Key Findings of OFSP Evaluation:
1. Impact on OFSP Adoption in 2009
Model 1 Impact: Model -
Control
Model 2
M1: 64 % ***
M2: 57 % ***
Control Cultivated OFSP
0 20 40 60 80
%
• Project resulted in a 57-64 % point increase in OFSP adoption
• Project increased the share of OFSP in total sweet potato (SP)
area by 41 to 46 % points

5. 2. Prevalence of Inadequate Vitamin A Intakes, Uganda
100
M1-C: -34%** M1-C: -1% M1-C: -36%**
90
M2-C: -31%** M2-C: -5% M2-C: -26%**
80
70
60
% 50
40
30
20
10
0
Model 1 Model 2 Control Model 1 Model 2 Control Model 1 Model 2 Control
Young children Reference children Women
Baseline Follow up
•Prevalence of inadequate vitamin A intakes
•Fell 33% for young children (age 6-35 months)
•Fell 26-36% for adult women
•Impact on reference children age 3-5 years shows no effect due to
improvement in control group

6. 3. Impact on Vitamin A Deficiency
• Serum retinol from blood samples was used to estimate impact
on prevalence of mild vitamin A deficiency (VAD)
(retinol<1.05μmol/L) for children age 3-5 at baseline or for
adult women
• Findings
• For children mildly VAD at baseline
• weakly significant effect reducing prevalence of mild VAD at
endline by 7.6 percentage points
• significant reduction in prevalence of mild VAD of 9.5 percentage
points in model with more control variables (e.g., age,
deworming), but a smaller sample
• Women: project had no impact on mild VAD
• Summary: broad adoption of OFSP substantially increases vitamin A
intakes and can reduce child mild VAD

7. What is the role of gender in OFSP adoption?
1. What roles do women and men play in the intrahousehold
decision-making process to adopt OFSP?
• Using data on which household members control each land parcel,
we explore gender-based differences in where OFSP is planted
2. Is OFSP adoption more common in households in which
women have stronger bargaining power ?
• Effect could be driven by women’s role in managing child diets
• Women were exclusively targeted for nutrition trainings, so may
have better information about the returns to adopting OFSP
• We address question 2 first in a household-level model of OFSP
adoption

8. Female bargaining power: asset ownership
Table 1: Gender differentiation in asset ownership at baseline, 2007
Female Male Joint
exclusive exclusive ownership
ownership ownership
Share of value of land 0.161 0.591 0.248
owned, 2007
Share of value of nonland 0.219 0.488 0.308
assets owned, 2007
By District
Land, 2007
Kamuli 0.204 0.457 0.349
Bukedea 0.108 0.739 0.154
Mukono 0.182 0.550 0.268
Nonland assets, 2007
Kamuli 0.215 0.402 0.400
Bukedea 0.164 0.623 0.227
Mukono 0.281 0.420 0.317
• Women have exclusive ownership to 16.1% of land, 21.9% of other assets
• Joint ownership of assets is limited to 25-30% overall

9. Role of bargaining power in household adoption of OFSP
Table 2: Household-level model of OFSP adoption, controlling for
women’s asset ownership at baseline
All project Female headed Male headed
Dep. Var.: Pr(Adopt OFSP) households households households
Share of land exclusively 0.038 0.365* -0.011
owned by women, 2007 (0.070) (0.217) (0.076)
Share of nonland assets exclusively -0.029 -0.540** 0.032
owned by women, 2007 (0.069) (0.232) (0.074)
Notes: Model is seasonal random effects model including large set of household control
variables. * significant at the 10% level; **significant at the 5% level.
• Generally, the share of assets exclusively owned by women or by men
does not affect the household decision to grow OFSP in a given season
• In female-headed households, the share of exclusively owned...
• ...land assets: weakly increases OFSP adoption
• ...nonland assets: decreases OFSP adoption

10. Intrahousehold crop choice decisions
"Who decided what to grow on this parcel?"
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
Females only
0.5
Males only
0.4
Joint, females first
0.3
Joint, males first
0.2
0.1
0
Full sample Kamuli Bukedea Mukono
• Women alone make the crop choice decisions for 20% of land parcels
• 75% of crop choice decisions are joint, but men may receive priority in as
much as 80% of those decisions
“Separate plots are not always good for the well being and unity of the
family. A family can only progress if there’s cooperation between husband
and wife.” --male FGD participant in Kamuli

11. Gender control of land parcels and OFSP
Table 4: Gender of parcel control and OFSP adoption
Dep Var: Grow OFSP on this Unconditional All Parcels If household
• Naïve models (1) parcel (1) (2) adopts OFSP
and (2), ignore Parcel control: female only 0.055 0.005 -0.025
links in adoption (0.021)*** (0.005) (0.030)
decisions across Parcel control: male only -0.080 -0.132 -0.211
(0.055) (-0.132)** (0.053)***
parcels Parcel control: joint, female 1st 0.112 0.063 0.032
(0.025)*** (0.063)*** (0.027)
• Plots jointly Ln expenditure per adult equ. 0.020 0.020
controlled, with (0.020)* (0.015)
women leading Vitamin A knowledge, 2007 0.046 0.016
decision-making, (0.046)*** (0.020)
Change in vit A knowledge 0.041 0.024
are most likely to (0.041)*** (0.014)*
have OFSP Share of SP in land area, 2007 0.226 0.085
(0.226)*** (0.052)
• Conditional on HH Land area controlled, 2009 -0.062 -0.066
adoption, male (-0.062)*** (0.011)***
controlled plots Land parcel area, 2009 0.135 0.151
(0.135)*** (0.021)***
are least likely to Ln farmer group size -0.114 -0.014
have OFSP (-0.114)* (0.063)
Land tenure is freehold -0.169 -0.305
(-0.169)* (0.340)
Observations 5723 5032 3138

12. Correlated decisions across parcels
Table 5: OFSP adoption, correlated decisions across parcels
Incl. Other Household
• Controlling for Parcel Fixed
correlation of Dep Var: Grow OFSP on this Controls Effects
decisions across parcel (1) (2)
parcels weakens Parcel control: female only -0.077 -0.124
significance of (0.052) (0.247)
effects Parcel control: male only -0.292 -0.656*
(0.098)*** (0.345)
• Acknowledge that Parcel control: joint, female 1st 0.091 0.232
gender of control (0.046)** (0.191)
over parcels is not No. other parcels: female only -0.088
fixed; still need to (0.022)***
account for this No. other parcels: male only -0.035
(0.024)
• Cannot yet No. other parcels: joint, female 1st -0.133
identify whether (0.016)***
effects are gender No. other parcels: joint, male 1st -0.116
differences in (0.012)***
preferences, Observations 5032 4490
information or Notes: Other control variables not reported.
specialization

13. Are smaller farms more egalitarian?
Table 6: OFSP adoption by size of landholdings
• Qualitative research Land area Land area
by Julia Behrman Dep Var: Grow OFSP on this < 3.25 acres ≥ 3.25 acres
suggested that parcel (1) (2)
agriculture decision- Parcel control: female only -0.011 0.021
making may be more (0.034) (0.037)
egalitarian on small Parcel control: male only -0.269 -0.007
farms. (0.078)*** (0.052)
Parcel control: joint, female 1 st 0.057 0.047
• For OFSP adoption, (0.030)* (0.032)
evidence does not Observations 2405 2627
support ‘small but Notes: Other control variables not reported.
equal’ hypothesis
• Gender control over
parcels has a larger
effect on OFSP
adoption in small
farms than in large
farms.

14. Bargaining, parcel control and OFSP adoption
Table 7: OFSP adoption by female ownership of nonland assets
• Households in which High share of
women have weaker Low share of female
bargaining power female ownership of
are more likely to ownership of nonland
grow OFSP on joint Dep Var: Grow OFSP on this nonland assets assets
plots with women in parcel (1) (2)
primary control Parcel control: female only 0.032 -0.036
(0.049) (0.035)
Parcel control: male only -0.085 -0.198
• Where female (0.065) (0.082)**
bargaining power is Parcel control: joint, female 1st 0.097 0.021
higher, decision- (0.029)*** (0.032)
making on joint Observations 2377 2655
plots appears more Notes: Other control variables not reported.
egalitarian

15. Closing Points
• Problems and successes
Good data on gender,
bargaining power and
control over farming, thanks
in part to GAAP, are helping
the adoption study
• What we would have
done differently
For learning purposes,
experiment with providing
access to nutrition trainings
between women and men,
or between women and
both together