Abstracts Womens Studies

IMPACT OF EXPOSURE TO GENETICALLY MODIFIED EGGPLANT ON WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN BANGLADESH

by Kushal Kumar Reddy Digavinti Venkata Siva Satya S

In Bangladesh, millions of smallholder farmers depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, contributing significantly to the global food supply. These households often feature a prominent role for women in agriculture, and generally exhibit low technology adoption rates. While the productivity and economic benefits of new agricultural technologies are well-documented, their impact on women's roles within the household remains less understood. This study estimates the impact of exposure to genetically modified (GM) eggplant on women's empowerment in Bangladesh. Taking advantage of the framework from Ahmed et al. (2021)’s impact evaluation in 2018, this study quantifies the effects five years post-intervention using the project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI). With a multivariate logit model, I quantify the impact on individual indicators of women's empowerment. Building on existing studies on GM crops, I hypothesize that the women's empowerment could be negatively affected with adoption of GM eggplant, due to the additional income being redirected away from women within the household. I did not find significant differences in the individual empowerment indicators for the treatment participants compared to the control group but women are more empowered in all indicators by magnitude; this translates into a marginal increase in the overall pro-WEAI score. These findings indicate that the intervention may not have exacerbated gender inequalities and could have alleviated some. This underscores the complex interplay between technology adoption and women's empowerment in smallholder farming households, highlighting the need for further research and nuanced gender-embedded interventions.