‘Memoir of a shea tree’ and other stories call for votes

In 2014 the spotlight is on family farming and particularly rural farmer households’ role in achieving sustainable development. There are over 500 million family farms around the world, making them the predominant form of agriculture providing  food  in developed and developing countries. But they feed the world not only with crops, such as wheat or millet. Trees are also part of the farm landscape and provide not only food but also essential environmental services.

Agroforestry systems – trees on farms – offer households economic benefits by increasing the range of products they can take to market as well as widening the range of foods consumed. Trees help restore soil fertility and reduce nutrient and soil runoff on farms. Forest biodiversity loss is driven in part by forest and non-timber forest product overexploitation. This could be reduced if more trees were planted on farms.

Family farming relies on family labour, both women’s and men’s. Women’s participation in decision making at household levels, although often limited, has been shown to improve crop yields, and improve financial management. If women had the same access to productive resources as men, it’s been projected that yields on farms could increase by up to 30% by 2030 (FAO).

In 2013, Bioversity International’s Forest Genetic Resources Programme launched the Gender Research Fellowship targeted at studying differences in women’s and men’s knowledge of trees and forests, access to forest resources, and tree management practices. Five fellows are examining these themes in several African and Asian countries to discover how gendered knowledge, roles, rights and responsibilities affect the conservation and management of trees and their diversity.

In light of the upcoming World Congress on Agroforestry, three of the fellows decided to let us have a peek at their ongoing research and contributed three blog posts to the event’s blog competition. Readers are invited to vote for their favorite blogs by 5 February, 2014.

In ‘Non-timber forest products: the way forward for the rural woman?’ Yvonne Kiki Nchanji describes the change that is happening in the way labour is divided among men and women in African forest communities. Read more and vote for Yvonne’s blog here.

Another fellow, Mawa Karambiri, chose a Burkina Faso shea tree as the narrator of her blog post ‘Me, shea tree: women’s green gold’. As the tree grows old, it enquires: “How can my country’s food security needs and forestry requirements work in the same direction to allow agroforestry to support the livelihoods of our communities?” Read more and vote for Mawa’s blog here.

‘Native fruit trees of life and livelihoods’ by Narasimha Hegde tells the tale of how women's and men's roles complement each other in conserving native fruit trees in India. Read more and vote for Narasimha’s blog here.