1. Introduction

A prerequisite for sustainable agricultural and rural development is gender equitable access to appropriate technology and related support services for population living in agriculture and rural communities. Yet while considerable progress has been achieved in technology development in Asia, most technology has been targeted at men. The processes of technology development and dissemination have ignored the differing roles and technology needs of men and women in distinct agro-ecological production systems. Technology transfer approaches have tended to isolate women in traditional gender roles, perpetuating the notion that technology for men is also good for women.

While the overall position of women in Thailand compares well with other developing countries in the Asia-Pacific Region, gender inequalities persist in the labour market, income distribution, and access to resources and services. Rural women play a vital role in household and rural production systems in Thailand and contribute to the generation of family income and food security. Yet, their role is usually unrecognized and unpaid because of the lack of sex-segregated statistics, as well as traditional beliefs and cultural biases that undervalue women’s contribution. As a consequence, rural women tend to lack equal access to technologies that are affordable and appropriate to their needs for farm and home production as well as for post harvesting activities.

In this context, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Regional Office for Asia and Pacific (FAO/RAP) cooperated in a Support for Policy and Programme Development (SPPD) project in Thailand during 2001 to 2003. The purpose of the SPPD was to assess gender-differentiated technology needs as well as availability and dissemination modalities in selected villages of Thailand, and to identify capacity-building strategies to improve rural women’s access to and use of technologies in support of poverty alleviation. The aim was to develop research-driven recommendations to support the Royal Government of Thailand, UNDP and FAO to:

• Improve rural women’s access to and use of appropriate and modern technologies to reduce the burden of unpaid care work and stimulate improvements in farm production.

• Promote inter-sectoral partnerships and expand the rural resource base to improve productivity in unpaid care work and farm production.

• Develop and disseminate a gender-responsive policy framework for rural technology development and education to assist rural households to improve their livelihoods and living standards.

An additional objective of the SPPD was to build the capacity of selected Thai professionals and grassroots workers to carry out participatory research and gender analysis. In this context, field investigators from the four provinces included in the study were trained in participatory rural appraisal tools and techniques, and basic gender analysis theories and concepts^[1]. In addition, members of the national participatory rural appraisal (PRA) team participated in a three-day training course, and a young (Thai) professional officer was recruited to the team in the place of a community development specialist.

1.1 Conceptual framework: Gender Responsive Technology

The conceptual framework in Figure 1 was developed to guide the design of field research and its implementation. The conceptual framework provides the rationale, grounded in the local socio-economic and cultural milieu and policy environment, in which to: i) identify the existing technologies used by rural women; ii) analyse women’s and men’s respective technology needs; and iii) review existing technology support. It integrates consideration of different factors - such as rural economics, rural infrastructure and logistics, technology traditions and practices, and rural institutions - that affect the supply of and demand for gender-responsive technology. The availability of technology and gender-differentiated access were examined for activities in three groups: agricultural production, post-harvest and household activities.

Figure 1: Gender responsive technology for poverty alleviation:
A conceptual framework

Within each of these segments, researchers examined the existing access among men and women to technology in order to identify gender gaps - that is a situation where the technology supply does not meet the demands of rural women. In a complementary process, gender-differentiated expectations and perceptions of technology needs and user capacity were studied. Supply and demand was considered on the basis of the type of technology available, access to related information and training support, its cost and user-constraints, as well as the existing institutional and policy framework.

For the purposes of this study, technology is defined

For the purposes of this study, technology is defined to comprise hardware (such as seeds, vaccines or machinery), management practices and techniques (such as soil and water conservation practices, post-harvesting and crop mixes), and increases in knowledge (whether traditional, modern or some combination of the two) that strengthen local capacity for experimentation, communication and general resource management. Gender responsive technologies are defined as a set of technologies that pay due attention to gender-differentiated needs and constraints, reduce drudgery among women, release time for alternative activities, and promote labour efficiency and sustained household economic and welfare gains.

1.2 Methodology

The study used a mix of complementary research methodologies to collect the required qualitative and quantitative information.

These included:

• Collection and review of secondary data from the district and village level.

• Focus group discussions with provincial and district government officials, and Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs).

• Key informant interviews with community leaders, and representatives of local community and women’s groups.

• PRA - with approximately 50 rural men and women in each village - conducted in Thai language using a variety of techniques (including Venn diagrams, transect walks, problem ranking, wealth ranking, household interview, observation, etc.).^[2]

• Informal interviews with village leaders, extension officers, key men and women farmers, Buddhist monks, and leaders and members of women’s group.

• Desk review of the policies, strategies and overall gender responsiveness of key government institutions.

1.3 Study sites

The research sites were six villages in four provinces as indicated in Figure 2.

The four provinces were selected (Buriram, Nan, Phitsanulok, and Songkhla) to reflect the diversity of socio-economic and agro-ecological conditions in Thailand, ranging from lowland coastal plains to high plateau and mountainous areas, as shown in Table 1. The following indicators were used to select villages: cooperative headman; relatively poor; and location in a district where the UNDP Sustainable Agriculture Project has been implemented. In the sample frame two provinces were included twice to ensure selection of villages to provide an agro-ecological and production system variance. These two provinces were Nan and Songkhla.

Figure 2: Location of study sites

Table 1: Profile of the villages included in the research

The study was pilot in scope only including six villages and four provinces and thus, it is acknowledged that the findings are relevant to these research sites and thus presents a limitation of generalization of the results to whole of Thailand. It is possible that there could be different patterns in other villages not included in the study.