The Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) is a direct, multi-dimensional measure of women's access to resources and decision-making in various domains of agriculture. However, several challenges characterize its use: adaptation of questionnaires to local agricultural contexts, modifications to index construction once underlying activities and adequacy thresholds are modified, and sensitivity analysis. In this paper, the authors address such challenges based on our experience of adapting and using the WEAI across 3600 households in India.

This study explores the role of gender-based decision-making in the adoption of improved maize varieties. The primary data were collected in 2018 from 560 farm households in Dawuro Zone, Ethiopia, and were comparatively analyzed across gender categories of households: male decision-making, female decision-making and joint decision-making, using a double-hurdle model. The results show that the intensity of improved maize varieties adopted on plots managed by male, female, and joint decision-making households are significantly different.

Literature is scanty on how public agricultural investments can help reducing the impact of future challenges such as climate change and population pressure on national economies. The objective of this study is to assess the medium and long-term effects of alternative agricultural research and development investment scenarios on male and female employment in 14 African countries. The authors first estimate the effects of agricultural investment scenarios on the overall GDP growth of a given country using partial and general equilibrium models.

The mergers of some of the world's largest agribusinesses have led to speculation about what sort of global citizens the new companies will become and whether vulnerable rural populations, especially smallholder men and women farmers, will be negatively impacted. As innovation leaders in the agriculture industry, these new companies will be expected to play key roles in finding solutions for major agricultural challenges facing the world today.

Women empowerment through increasing the access of resources in local situation is the highlighted issue in the present context. Women involve in different types of activities in agricultural sphere and shoulder the responsibility in playing the roles of different actors in agricultural innovation system. The dimension of agricultural innovation always prefers to go along with the concepts of the dynamics around different activities and roles that poor women communities engaging towards addressing their social and economic needs through agricultural production system.

Although many smallholder communities are yet to embark on their journey towards gender empowerment, this report presents best practice examples which demonstrate that significant strides can be achieved in relatively short time periods. Women’s Coffee initiatives are engaging consumers about the role of women in coffee production, and providing additional premiums that fund projects targeted at women, such as the projects implemented by UNICAFEC in Peru and Soppexcca in Nicaragua.

In order to address food insecurity, the New Green Revolution for Africa (GR4A) promotes tighterintegration of African smallholder farmers, especially women, into formal markets via value chains to improve farmers’ input access and to encourage the sale of crop surpluses. This commentary offers a theoretical and practical critique of the GR4A model, drawing on early findings from a five-year study of value chain initiatives in Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Mozambique.

BRAC is a global leader in creating large-scale opportunities for the poor. This chapter describes how small farmer innovations are being developed by BRACAgriculture and Food Security program. In collaboration with the Government and theInternational Agricultural Research Centers, the program aims to achieve food security and reduce hunger and malnutrition through increased environmentally sustainable agricultural production systems. The research focus is on cereal crops (rice andmaize), vegetables and oilseeds.