Message 20: Don Peden

Don Peden provides some interesting insights on the connections between livestock and water management, their combined effects on gender relations.

Dear Colleagues:

Many important ideas have already been expressed in the discussions. I will add few thoughts as they link to livestock use of and impact on water resources.

1. Why is it important to mainstream a gender perspective in agricultural water management? (A maximum of 3 points preferably with supporting cases or examples)

a) Often in water management, the important role of livestock keeping, a highly gendered livelihood strategy, is ignored. Livestock make up 30 to 40% irrigation farmers’ income (El Zaki, 2005) in major irrigation schemes such as Gezira. Women may or may not benefit from income generated by sale livestock and livestock products. They may or may not equally share the burden of labour involved in raising animals and caring for sick ones. The relative roles that women and men play will vary from one agriculture production system to another and from one culture to another. Since livestock-based assets serve as key means for people to secure and accumulate wealth in Africa, understanding the relative roles women and men have in livestock keeping and in access to wealth stored as livestock will be important to understanding one major pathway out of poverty. (Some of this will be included in the CA livestock chapter).

b) Livestock in Africa often contaminate domestic water. Herds are frequently managed by boys and men but women are responsible for fetching domestic water. There is often little meeting of minds arising from these two different uses of water. Overcoming such differences by separating animal drinking from withdrawals of domestic water could help ease the pressure of some water borne diseases. For example, cryptosporidium is known to enhance the onset of AIDS in HIV infected persons and the HIV/AIDS is often a gendered health problem.

c) Shifts in livestock watering practices and water demanding feeding strategies can lead to shifts in the roles that girls and boys have within households. This shift can have a gendered impact on school attendance.

2. What are the real issues that challenge the integration of gender concerns into water management and agriculture? (3 points with evidence-supporting cases and examples)

a) Apart from ideas already mentioned, there has been a profound gap in efforts to understand the nexus between of livestock and water development. Given this huge knowledge gap, it is not surprising that gender in this context has not been discussed considered in any depth..

3. Why is gender not mainstreamed in water management in agriculture? (3 points with evidence)

a) In the livestock context, gender could not have been mainstreamed within a field of research that has not developed in the past. In addition, livestock development has been in relative terms a “gender blind” area of R&D when compared to many other aspects of agriculture.

REFERENCES:

El Zaki, Raga Ali. 2005. THE FEASIBILITY OF INTEGRATION OF LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION IN IRRIGATED AGRICULTURE IN SUDAN (CASE STUDY: THE GEZIRA SCHEME) Ph.D. Theses, University of Khartoum. 196 pp

Don Peden
Leader, Sustaining water and nutrient productivity of livestock systems.
International livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
PO Box 5689, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
E-mail: d.peden@cgiar.org
Tel: 251-11-6463215 (main switch board) or 251-11-6460275 Office direct)
Fax: 251-11-6461252