Integrating Gender and Nutrition within Agricultural Extension Services: Technology Profile - Treadle Pumps in Eastern Province, Zambia

Sixty percent of the population lives in rural areas with limited infrastructure, and poverty and stunting levels are high. In Eastern Province, where this technology assessment was conducted, agricultural productivity is particularly low. Women are engaged in agriculture, responsible for domestic food production and household nutrition, but often do not own or control productive resources, are excluded from decision-making processes, and have limited access to information, communications, infrastructure, and markets. The Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index showed that only 40% of women in households with both adult men and women in the Eastern Province Feed the Future Zone of Influence have achieved gender parity. Lack of control over use of income and limited access to assets were strong contributors to this lack of parity. Zambian agriculture would benefit from improvements in small-scale agricultural production, and reaching women is a necessity given their active participation and potential. Transitions from rainfed to irrigated agriculture can significantly alter gender relations and control in agricultural production and income. The Integrating Gender and Nutrition within Agricultural Extension Services (INGENAES) project works to improve agricultural livelihoods by strengthening extension and advisory services to empower and engage smallholder farmers, men and women. The technology profiles support INGENAES's goal of improving the dissemination of gender-appropriate and nutrition-enhancing technologies and inputs to improve women's agricultural productivity and enhance household nutrition. The technology profiles identify issues and opportunities to make technologies more attractive for men and women farmers, to increase men's and women's benefits from using technologies, and to design distribution models for extension agents, input suppliers, and mobile devices to get the technologies into men's and women's hands. The technology assessment examined men's and women's access to and benefits from a productivity-enhancing technology, an irrigation treadle pump. The treadle pump was introduced in Zambia through the Feed the Future Commercial Agribusiness for Sustainable Horticulture (CASH) project, implemented between 2011-2015 by Agribusiness in Sustainable Natural African Plant Products (ASNAPP). The CASH project trained farmers on business and farming practices, facilitated partnerships between farmers and local businesses, and disseminated and financed MoneyMakerMax treadle pumps through loans to farmers in associations. Farmers mostly heard about the treadle pump through farmer associations, but the message also spread through friends or family members. Participation in a farming association affiliated with CASH was the most important means to obtain the pump.