Even with women playing a significant role in agriculture across the world, social norms that prevent them from being fully integrated into the sector also affect how and whether their experiences are incorporated into research.   

The Impacting Gender and Nutrition through Innovative Technical Exchange in Agriculture (IGNITE) project, implemented by Tanager, Laterite, and 60 Decibels, provides technical assistance to African agricultural institutions to integrate gender and nutrition into their programming and operations. Over the past five years, the project has also partnered with these institutions to conduct gender-sensitive agricultural research.  

IGNITE research partner Laterite recently shared the lessons it has learned to ensure women’s voices are fully captured in research. For example, it suggests listing the complete population of interest prior to information gathering, to understand the group’s composition and representation of men vs. women. Stratification—even within a population of interest—is additionally important to ensure groups, and even individuals, are adequately represented in the research. Depending on the country and culture in which the study is being conducted, researchers should also design their studies to account for different family structures, including female-led households or polygamous households. Finally, using inclusive data collection methods is necessary to build trust and ensure respondent insights are appropriately captured. 

Read more about the research here.