Beyond the boma: A gendered approach to conceptualizing resource access in pastoral households

A review of gender in agricultural and pastoral livelihoods based on selected countries in west and east Africa

“…These gender differences are evident in both the livestock and crop agriculture sectors. For livestock, there was differential access, preferences and roles amongst the Maasai pastoralists and elsewhere in Kenya (Mutua et al, 2017;Yurco, 2018;Nkedianye et al, 2019); amongst Somali pastoralists (Marshall et al, 2016); and in Ethiopia (Lunt et al, 2018). Although one study shows that there are no gender differences in ruminant disease priorities in Ethiopia (Alemu et al, 2019).…”

Political ecology of milk: Contested futures of a lively food

“…The complexity and context-specific nature of both development and human nutrition—as well as the high cost of studies considering these dual components—has meant scarce research integrating nutritional evidence with assessments of specific development programs and their impacts on rural livelihoods ( Grace et al, 2018 ; Muehlhoff, Bennett, & McMahon, 2013 ). This disconnect between studies of nutrition and assessments of development policies may also owe to the fact that research on subsistence livestock systems generally focuses on how livestock are grazed rather than how livestock are managed for milk consumption ( Yurco, 2018 ). The emphasis on grazing management has led to a misguided assumption that development initiatives will improve nutrition if grazing capacity is enhanced ( Dugdill et al, 2013 ; Sadler et al, 2009 ).…”

“…The emphasis on grazing management has led to a misguided assumption that development initiatives will improve nutrition if grazing capacity is enhanced ( Dugdill et al, 2013 ; Sadler et al, 2009 ). In Africa, development policies focusing on grazing are especially problematic as they overlook women’s roles in livestock systems (women most often manage animal health and milk while men attend to grazing duties) and can even create higher labor demands for women ( Njuki, Waithanji, Bagalwa, & Kariuki, 2013 ; Yurco, 2018 ).…”

“… Alston et al (2017) demonstrated that the commercialization of family dairy farms in Australia created a commercial-oriented ethos that re-validated men’s roles as farmer-managers while diminishing the value of women’s hidden but equally essential contributions to household labor. As another example, through a feminist ethnographic analysis of a pastoralist community in Kenya, Yurco (2018) discusses how intra-household access to livestock resources is highly uneven and the ways that women use their knowledge of milk and animal health to challenge or even overcome factors that otherwise perpetuate such marginalization.…”

“…Meanwhile, dairy consumption is booming in China and India, where a narrative of milk’s wholesomeness has merged with an agenda of nation building ( Ohlan, 2016 ; Pingali, 2006 ; Wiley, 2011 ) that strongly resembles corporate and state efforts to position milk as “nature’s perfect food” a century earlier in the United States ( DuPuis, 2002 ). Dairy continues to be a key source of nutrition and cattle an important store of wealth among rural societies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, yet access to livestock resources remains highly uneven across class and gender lines ( McPeak & Doss, 2006 ; Clay, 2018 ; Yurco, 2018 ). The rapid rise of dairy consumption in the Global South has come alongside food system transformations and the rise of supermarkets, which incorporate small farmers into national and regional markets ( Popkin, 2014 ; Reardon, Peter Timmer, Barrett, & Berdegué, 2003 ).…”