Mayanja S, Mudege N and Naziri D

A gender baseline household survey was conducted in central and eastern Uganda to assess sweetpotato current postharvest and marketing practices with an aim of identifying gender based constraints that could limit the uptake of and benefıts thereof from technologies and innovations. Data were collected from 137 respondents (92 F, 45 M) using a semi-structured questionnaire and analyzed using Stata 13. Men reported to grow sweetpotato in larger plots than women (0.96 and 0.81 acres, respectively). Average land holdings were 5.5 and 4.1 acres for male and female, respectively. Women mostly grew sweetpotatoes for food (56%), both food and income (41%) and a few (3%) primarily for income. On the other hand, most men produced for food (61%) but also for food and income (39%). About 53% of men participated in marketing compared to 48% women. The most commonly traded variety (by volume of sales) was Naspot 11 followed by Naspot 12 while local varieties were mostly grown for food. Only 35% of the respondents (60% of whom were women) reported sales of Naspot 11. There was no significant difference between annual mean traded volumes of Naspot 11 by male and female farmers (700kg). The annual mean sales for all varieties was 540kg for men and 381 kg; and there was no significant difference across the sexes. Both women and men farmers mentioned local markets as the most important point of sale. Only women (8%) cited major town markets as an important point of sale.  Women and men farmers mostly sold sweetpotatoes to local traders but women also cited fellow farmers as significant buyers. With regards to marketing decisions, 35% women and 33% men perceived they had the ability to decide on where to sell the crop; while 38% women and 33% men perceived they had the ability to decide on the final buyer. Over 20% of both women and men respondents revealed they make joint decisions on these issues. There was no sıgnıfıcant dıfference across sex on the abılıty to decıde on how to use income derived from sweetpotato sales.  Challenges cited included pest and diseases attack during in-ground storage (42%M, 36%F), rotting (24% M, 36%F) and theft (15% M). Other challenges include lack of markets, low prices and lack of timely market information.  The findings were used to design a gender strategy in which both gender responsive and gender transformative strategies were developed to ensure that women and men benefit from the postharvest and marketing interventions.  For market access, one of the gender responsive strategies proposed was development of a gender responsive marketing training module; while the gender transformative strategy was training women on marketing skills and negotiation The strategy is a living document which other sweetpotato interventions can refer to.