Gender affects how landscapes are used for nutrition
Bioversity International scientist Natalia Estrada-Carmona writes about her work in the Barotse floodplain in Zambia, investigating how men and women interact differently with the landscape, and how that affects nutrition.
In rural communities, the diversity of the food people eat is closely linked to how people manage their landscape. In the Barotse floodplain in Zambia, Bioversity International scientist Natalia Estrada-Carmona is working with the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) and the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agriculture Systems, to find out what the significant differences are between how men and women interact with the landscape, and how that affects access to food and nutrition.
The process begins with a participatory mapping exercise done with each gender group separately. Combining local knowledge and publicly-available digital maps, researchers and community members were able to plot how different individuals access and use resources in the landscape. This information will help communities develop strategies to improve diet diversification and managing seasonal variation of food availability.