Post-Doc Fellow - Gendered Agricultural Knowledge (Uganda)
Bioversity International is seeking a highly motivated Post Doctoral Fellow to conduct research on how to integrate gender-oriented research, especially gendered trait preferences, into the complete banana-breeding process. Banana-breeders historically prioritize hybrid creation for yield and resistance (pest, disease, abiotic) traits, without fully understanding all the traits important to the intended end-users. As banana cultivation, value- added processing, selling and consuming are frequently gender-specific, so too are the associated trait preferences. Breeding strategies that are blind to gender differences are likely to result in continued low rates of adoption, representing wasted investment, and potentially the reproduction of gender inequalities. Adoption of new varieties intersects with gender relations and possible intra-household inequality (i.e. control, access, and decision-making across a range of issue areas, such as land tenure, seed systems, cultivation, labour, capital, use of earned income, nutrition). Such social context must be understood to enable gender-responsive banana breeding.
