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The impact of women’s access to agricultural extension on cropping practices in Timor-Leste

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Abstract

Agricultural development programs are increasingly aiming to boost women’s engagement in agricultural extension in countries and regions where women are marginalized and their access to extension is constrained by socio-cultural and institutional barriers. Studies examining the impact of such programs on women’s participation in extension and households’ agricultural practices are limited. Using the midterm evauation data of a nationwide agricultural intervention program (Seeds of Life) that aimed to augment women’s access to extension service through a community-based seed multiplication initiative, our study identifies a significant gender gap in access to extension in Timor-Leste. We find that an agricultural program with a conscious effort and clear target to engage women significantly improves women’s access to extension. Additionally, our results reveal that women’s access to extension changes households’ cropping practice by increasing the cultivation of the number of major and minor crops and the number of plots. Interestingly, we find a significant negative correlation between women’s access to extension and adoption of improved variety in the program villages.

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Notes

  1. Further details about the survey design and logistics are available in SoL (2013): http://seedsoflifetimor.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/SoL3-mid-term-survey-report.pdf

  2. Due to the small number of observations (n = 46), a separate dummy to estimate the effect for households where ‘only’ women and no men is/are acquainted with the extension agent is not included.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) to the Seeds of Life program. We thank our respondents for their participation in the household survey. We are grateful to Ms. Octaviana Ferreira Agostinho for her support during household data collection. We thank Dr. Namrata Chindarkar for her valuable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, The National University of Singapore, 469C Bukit Timah Road, Singapore, 259772, Singapore

    Sonia Akter

  2. Centre for Plant Genetics and Breeding (PGB)/Institute of Agriculture, School of Agriculture and Environment, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    William Erskine

  3. Seeds of Life, Timor-Leste Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF), Dili, Timor-Leste

    Luc Spyckerelle, Lucia Viana Branco & Julie Imron

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  1. Sonia Akter
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  2. William Erskine
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  4. Lucia Viana Branco
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  5. Julie Imron
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Correspondence to Sonia Akter.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Statements of human rights & informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. All procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national Agriculture Development Program Implementation in Timor-Leste and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 7 A summary of the phase by phase village coverage by SoL between July 2011 and June 2015
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Appendix 2

Fig. 2
figure 2

Location of the sampled villages. Notes: CSPG refers to community seed production groups. Municipality of Oecusse is shown as an insert top-left.

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Akter, S., Erskine, W., Spyckerelle, L. et al. The impact of women’s access to agricultural extension on cropping practices in Timor-Leste. Food Sec. 12, 449–463 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-020-01007-0

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