Conference Agenda

Herd health management is an important strategy in the sustainable intensification of livestock for food system transformation. While adoption patterns and productivity gains have been analyzed in previous studies, the social implications are still not well understood. We test the hypotheses that the adoption of herd health management practices increases intra-household labor demand among male and female household members and, thereby, affects women's empowerment. We use primary data from smallholder dairy farmers in Kenya on time use, women's participation in decision-making and livestock asset ownership, adoption status of important herd health management practices, as well as household demographic characteristics. We apply censored regression and multinomial logit regression models to test our hypotheses. The results show that adopting herd health management practices is associated with more labor demand in dairy production for both men and women. The magnitude of the change differs across production systems but is always higher for men. Additionally, herd health management practices are negatively associated with different aspects of women’s empowerment including women’s livestock asset ownership and control over income from dairy. The study underscores the importance for gender-sensitivity in the sustainable intensification of livestock production in the Global South.