Gender-responsive crop breeding_ Collecting gender-disaggregated preferences

Traditionally, breeding programs have developed varieties suitable for specific agro-ecological conditions. This has been embellished with taking into consideration the crop management regimes. However, it has been recognized that we need to not just breed for places, but for people who will be using those varieties.

Demand-led breeding is important to ensure that the products developed are consistent with the demands, needs, and preferences of farmers, consumers and processors. Higher relevance is expected to lead to higher adoption, and consequently wider impact.

Understanding gender-differentiated trait preferences of various actors is critical to inform demand-led breeding priorities and investment decisions.
The sets of traits that different socio- economic groups/customer segments, spanning producers, consumers, millers, traders and other value chain actors, desire in the rice varieties they grow

and consume could be different (and different between women and men) within these groups. The aim is not
to develop separate varieties for men and women, but to invest in developing varieties that include preferred traits of both women and men. We cannot breed for the large number of diverse traits that women and men prefer, but we can ensure the ‘must have’ traits for both are included. We also need to ensure that the not-so desirable traits which might affect women and men negatively are managed (e.g., requiring high labour or costs, etc).

A review of literature (across all crops, agro-ecologies and regions) concludes broadly that: (1) overall, men focus more on production and marketing-related traits; (2) while women focus on production and use (post harvest and food preparation) related traits.

However, when both groups face similar constraints (mostly production and agro-ecological), they tend
to mention similar preferences. However, evidence is very sparse with regard to gender-differentiated trait preferences. Very few studies conducted and published focused on Asia (13%) and fewer on rice.

Available data also indicates that in addition to gender, Intersectional factors like poverty, caste, and location (determines vulnerability due to abiotic stresses faced) influence trait preferences. So also do other factors like land holding size, production purpose, family labour participation, access to information, social networks
and, intra-household decision making. Preferences also tend to vary with changes in agro-ecologies induced by climate change and other socio-economic, market, and policy forces. It is, therefore, important to capture these trait preferences on a continuous basis to inform breeding investments. Periodic surveys are one way of generating this data, but often research programs do not have adequate resources to conduct large-scale surveys on a regular basis. Therefore, we need to look for cost-effective ways of generating this data.

In this regard, regular activities that are conducted by research and development organizations such
as demonstrations, field days, crops cafeterias and Participatory Varietal Selection (PVS) become important. While information on varietal choices is collected during these events, gender-disaggregated information is not. They also stop short at asking for choices, but not the reason behind those choices. It is important to understand these reasons as that will determine if and what breeding solutions might be appropriate.