When Agronomy Flirts with Markets, Gender, and Nutrition: A Political Ecology of the New Green Revolution for Africa and Women’s Food Security in Burkina Faso

Abstract

Advocates of the Green Revolution for Africa (GR4A) argue that the best way to address malnutrition is to incorporate smallholders into the global food economy via value chains involving the use of improved inputs, production technologies, and access to markets. Moseley and Ouedraogo critically assess these tactics using a feminist political ecology lens to analyze GR4A efforts in southwestern Burkina Faso which target female rice farmers. They examine the nature of the GR4A rice value chain, the degree to which a GR4A project is impacting the nutrition of participating women, and the influence of gender roles on GR4A rice project outcomes.

Dietary Power and Self-Determination among Female Farmers in Burkina Faso: A Proposal for a Food Consumption Agency Metric

“…Concerning the choice of the study region itself, the second author had ongoing research in southwestern Burkina Faso regarding the Green Revolution for Africa (GR4A) approach and projects such as the BRICOP rice farming project [34]. Figure 1 further distinguishes BRICOP and non-BRICOP villages [35].…”

“…Figure 1 further distinguishes BRICOP and non-BRICOP villages [35]. Using food security and dietary diversity surveys, which are discussed below, he collected household level data between 2016 and 2020 to assess the success of the BRICOP project and how the market and gender intersect in human-environment interactions [34]. Due to our limited ability to conduct new fieldwork during the COVID-19 pandemic, we developed this paper's metrics and analysis with that data.…”

Snapshot of a crisis: food security and dietary diversity levels among disrupted conventional and long‐term organic tea‐smallholders in Sri Lanka

“…Smallholder farms account for about 12 per cent of the world's farmland and supply roughly 80 per cent of the food produced in Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa (Fan & Rue, 2020). Scholars have recognized the importance of smallholders and the critical role they play in household food security and dietary diversity (Hlophe‐Ginindza & Mpandeli, 2020; Moseley & Ouedraogo, 2022; Williams et al ., 2018). Due to relatively high rates of malnutrition among some smallholder farming populations (FAO et al ., 2022), some governments, and international financial institutions (IFIs) have encouraged smallholders to grow cash crops to generate income and improve food security (Murphy, 2010).…”