Abstract:
Despite increasing sustainable agricultural intensification (SAI) investments, indicators
for detecting gender and intergenerational inequities in SAI costs and benefits sharing
often remain overgeneralized, theoretical, or locally irrelevant. We examine the
relative value of, and how to, customize standard SAI indicators to detect such
inequities in specific socio-cultural contexts to enhance data collection for
evidence-based decision making in fostering gender/youth inclusive SAI. Using
focus-group discussions and key informant interviews among farmers and diverse
government, NGO, private sector, and academic stakeholders in two districts in
Malawi and three in Ghana, we assess the perceived roles, differentiated needs/
priorities of men, women and youth, and the sharing of SAI burdens and benefits
within farming households. We investigate what context-appropriate questions to
ask, to whom, and how, to collect reliable information on indicators of SAIinvestment
inequities. Results illuminate context-specific, gendered and
intergenerational factors shaping access to and ownership of productive resources,
household decision making, SAI participation, and appropriateness of selected
indicators. Combining farmers’ and local field-expert’ perspectives offers practical
insights for customizing inequity indicators. Findings highlight advantages of local
contextualization of SAI indicators, including insights on appropriate data-collection
approaches that challenge orthodox survey/quantitative methods for detecting and
assessing gender/age inequities to foster inclusive SAI.
