Esther Oluwatosin Obafunsho, a young female researcher, recently led IITA’s gender and research team from the Cassava Breeding Unit to conduct fieldwork for a technographic study of cassava users’ activities through case studies in Osun and Imo states in Nigeria. Technography is the observation, description, and study of technologies and their application within a particular ecological, social, and historical context. The gender-focused study was carried out to complement IITA’s effort in developing modern and improved cassava clones that respond to end-users’ preferences.
On 24 March, Obafunsho highlighted the research in a presentation entitled, “Contexts and practices: A gendered technography of farmer-processor cassava activities in Nigeria”. She said the research aimed to identify aspirations, constraints, and opportunities within cassava farming-processing-marketing activities in Osun and Imo. They did this by mapping “context-mechanism-outcome (CMO) configurations” and how they differ for men and women cassava users and determine opportunities and challenges for men and women among the various value chain actors.