Despite the increasing recognition of women’s contribution to agricultural production, there are still factors limiting their agricultural productivity. It is widely known that male farmers have more access to productive assets and support services than female farmers. Hence, gender gaps in access to non-land agricultural input, technology, and extension services create noticeable differences in productivity between women and men in low-income countries.
To understand the gender differences in adopting improved technologies and agricultural productivity, gender researchers from IITA–CGIAR conducted a study in Malawi using national representative data collected from 1600 households and 5238 plots. The team led by Adane Tufa, Agricultural Economist at IITA Malawi, used a multivariate probit model to analyze the gender differences in the adoption of improved technologies, including intercropping, use of improved varieties, crop rotation and residue retention, manure use, and minimum tillage. They also analyzed the gender differences in agricultural productivity, using an exogenous switching regression (ESR) model and recentered influence function decomposition.