A story about the relationship between gender and tree planting by Seline Meijer, PhD student with the World Agroforestry Centre, has been chosen as the winner for East Africa in a CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) blog completion.
In the blog, Meijer describes her research on whether it is men or women who make decisions about tree planting in rural Malawi, and if it is men, does this mean more trees actually get planted.
The research has important implications for projects and interventions that promote agroforestry systems which can build greater resilience to climate change and provide enhanced food security.
Meijer found that the traditional assumption that it is senior males who make most of the agricultural decisions to be false and an oversimplification of the real situation. There were many instances where joint decisions were made by husbands and wives together. With regard to tree planting and management, decisions are more often made by the husband alone compared to other agricultural activities such as crop planting and fertilizer application.
When it comes to how many trees actually get planted, Meijer found that greater tree densities resulted from joint decision making rather than decisions made by the household head alone. The number of trees planted was no different between men and women.
Read the blog post: Who decides on tree planting: men or women?
Download a poster based on the research:
Meijer S, Catacutan D, Sileshi G W, Nieuwenhuis M (2014). The role of gender in household decision making on tree planting: A case study from Malawi. Poster presented at World Congress on Agroforestry. World Agroforestry Centre and University College Dublin.
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