Cornell University: Gender research points way towards more inclusive agricultural systems

In a special issue of the Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security, four new studies explore lessons learned from the first five years of the Gender-responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation (GREAT) project.

Launched in 2016, GREAT — led jointly by researchers at Cornell’s Department of Global Development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Makerere University in Uganda — developed a training model meant to disrupt the norms of crop improvement research. The studies take a comprehensive look at GREAT’s model and the impact feminist-informed gender training has on research and researchers in the crop improvement sector.

“Agricultural research systems have over the decades calcified into structures and processes that do not systematically prioritize gender equality,” said Hale Ann Tufan, GREAT co-PI and research professor of global development. “Gender trainings that challenge research teams to break this status quo are a critical part of making agricultural research processes and outputs contribute to gender equality and social inclusion. This special issue explores the foundations of the GREAT model that aims to do this.”