More than ‘Add Women and Stir’: Integrating Gender and Social Sciences into Agricultural Research-for-Development

The majority of the world’s poor are women and many of the world’s women are farmers. Whilst smallholder families play a central role in farming, food and health and natural resource management systems in low- and medium-income countries, women’s contributions are frequently undervalued or unrecognised—and they are disproportionately affected by poverty. In the agricultural sector, a focus on poverty reduction and livelihood improvement that addresses gender equity and empowers women and girls as a central pillar can narrow the gap between men’s and women’s access to resources and decision-making to increase agricultural production. This chapter captures the insights from such an approach by an agricultural research-for-development funding agency and uses the case study of the Family Farm Teams program in Papua New Guinea (PNG), to highlight key factors at both an institutional and program level.