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With research staff from more than 70 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Lilia Bliznashka

Lily Bliznashka is a Research Fellow in the Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit. Her research focuses on assessing the effectiveness of multi-input nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions and the mechanisms through which they work to improve maternal and child health and nutrition globally. She has worked in Burkina Faso, Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda.

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Natural Resources and Resilience

Dickson Kinuthia

Research Officer

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Bio

Dickson Kinuthia is a Research Officer in the Natural Resources and Resilience Unit. His research interests are in building resilient agricultural and food systems, participatory approaches to agricultural transformation, value chain development, and digitizing agricultural data. Dickson worked as an agricultural trade researcher at the Finance Trade and Investment Network (FINTRINET) prior to joining IFPRI. He has also worked for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO-Kenya), the Agriculture Sector Network (ASNET), and the Local Development Research Institute (LDRI) as a Research and Agricultural Policy Officer. He has a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Development Studies from USIU in Nairobi, Kenya, and a master’s degree in Development Studies from Lund University, Sweden.

Research Gate Profile

Publications

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Working Paper

Under the weight of provision: Gendered mental load among smallholder farmers in Kenya

2026Davis, Kristin E.; Vitelozzi, Sveva; Ronzani, Piero; Azzarri, Carlo; Kinuthia, Dickson
Details

Under the weight of provision: Gendered mental load among smallholder farmers in Kenya

Invisible mental strain affects women and men, especially in rural areas. The effects of this strain can influence collective and economic decisions, impacting resilience in low-resource agricultural communities. Using qualitative data collected from focus group discussions with smallholder farmers in Western Kenya, we explored gendered strains of women and men, their social and psychological consequences, and the gender empathy gap. We conducted focus group discussions with 56 farmers and found that expectations of the roles of women and men in the household were clear. The “invisible burden” was present in the pressure to be hardworking and to provide financial means for the family as a man; and to care for the family and farm as a woman. The strain led to stress, worry, and deterioration of mental health, contributing to despondency, isolation, household conflict, and even mental breakdowns. Household members coped with the psychological strain in different ways. Men tended to use avoidance mechanisms, isolate themselves, or turn to alcohol consumption. Women mentioned talking to others about the strain. Both women and men also reached out to other people, took some kind of action, made plans or relied on their faith in God. Both women and men showed empathy toward one another; that is, they recognized the strain and the effects on their spouse. However, women appeared to show more empathy than men. Thus, the breadwinner strain borne by men and the family load borne by women was an important factor in rural areas, affecting household relations and decisions, which can ultimately affect household resilience. Given the negative social and psychological consequences of this invisible burden, mental health literacy trainings, gender transformative approaches, community dialogues, and gender-responsive extension services can be employed to help households to better cope with strain.

Year published

2026

Authors

Davis, Kristin E.; Vitelozzi, Sveva; Ronzani, Piero; Azzarri, Carlo; Kinuthia, Dickson

Citation

Davis, Kristin; Vitelozzi, Sveva; Ronzani, Piero; Azzarri, Carlo; and Kinuthia, Dickson. 2026. Under the weight of provision: Gendered mental load among smallholder farmers in Kenya. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2413. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Country/Region

Kenya

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Gender; Mental Health; Mental Stress; Smallholders

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

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Working Paper

Breadwinner role and economic decision-making: Experimental evidence from Kenya

2025Vitellozzi, Sveva; Savadori, Lucia; Davis, Kristin E.; Azzarri, Carlo; Kinuthia, Dickson; Ronzani, Piero
Details

Breadwinner role and economic decision-making: Experimental evidence from Kenya

In several countries and settings, especially in low- and middle-income countries, men are expected to act as primary economic providers for their households, bearing the psychological and social burdens associated with this role. Despite its potential consequences, the effects of the breadwinner role on economic decision-making are understudied, particularly among poor households. This study investigates how gendered breadwinner expectations shape economic behavior in rural Kenya. Using a lab-in-the-field experiment among 400 smallholder farmers in Vihiga County, we test how psychological and social pressures associated with being the breadwinner of the family influence decision-making in both individual work choices and collective decisions. Participants completed a real-effort task choosing either a high-effort, high-reward option or a low-effort, low-reward alternative, followed by a public goods game framed around communal seed bank contributions. Results reveal that the heightened strain of the main breadwinner led male participants to reduce contributions to the communal seed bank by 0.2 standard deviations, while it did not affect their productivity in the real-effort task. These behavioral shifts suggest that the psychological consequences of breadwinner strain can undermine cooperation and the adoption of sustainable agriculture practices. Addressing the pressures of breadwinning can foster both economic resilience and social cohesion.

Year published

2025

Authors

Vitellozzi, Sveva; Savadori, Lucia; Davis, Kristin E.; Azzarri, Carlo; Kinuthia, Dickson; Ronzani, Piero

Citation

Vitellozzi, Sveva; Savadori, Lucia; Davis, Kristin E.; Azzarri, Carlo; Kinuthia, Dickson; and Ronzani, Piero. 2025. Breadwinner role and economic decision-making: Experimental evidence from Kenya. IFPRI Discussion Paper 2398. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/180329

Country/Region

Kenya

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Eastern Africa; Gender; Gender Norms; Decision Making; Poverty; Households; Intrahousehold Relations

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

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Conference Paper

Games-based learning for aggregated farming in western Kenya

2025Bell, Andrew R.; Zhang, Wei; Oingo, Balentine; Kinuthia, Dickson; Blackmore, Ivy; Hettiarachchi, Upeksha; Davis, Kristin E.
Details

Games-based learning for aggregated farming in western Kenya

Aggregated farm models offer the opportunity for fragmented smallholder landscapes to function at a larger scale, which is more conducive to both resilient livelihoods and good environmental stewardship but requires skills development among farmers in coordination and collective action. Experimental games provide opportunities for both research and experiential learning in agricultural systems. The games create hypothetical ‘action situations’ that bring none of the costs and risks of real-life action situations while still providing exposure to learning opportunities and potentially triggering learning with real-life utility. We developed a novel experimental game called ‘Shared-Cropping’ using the ELM lab’s Netlogo-based ‘Farm-Squares’ platform that presented challenges of farming and grazing in an openly shared space and played it with farmers in the initial stages of launching an aggregated farming scheme in Kisumu and Vihiga Counties in Western, Kenya, supported by the CGIAR Research Initiative on Nature-Positive Solutions. In Shared-Cropping, players interact via tablet computers connected over a mobile hotspot to choose how a shared landscape should be allocated to different farming activities over time. We used Shared-Cropping in an intervention that varied how players earned points across treatments – according to their earnings, according to the group’s lowest-earning player, and according to the outcome of group decision – and that included a pre- and post-game discrete choice experiment framed around agricultural losses and time use. We found farmers’ attention shifting to view group efforts more favorably after playing the game, particularly in the face of higher agricultural losses. Through the game play and post-game debrief discussion, we observed some evidence of direct, technical literal learning from the game, with players focusing attention on mechanisms for maintaining soil health, including diversifying land use. We also found evidence of learning around the challenges of group coordination and the sharing of responsibilities and benefits that persisted through a six-month follow-up visit, with better performance in game play by mixed-gender groups resonating with participants as an important consideration in their current and future aggregate farming efforts.

Year published

2025

Authors

Bell, Andrew R.; Zhang, Wei; Oingo, Balentine; Kinuthia, Dickson; Blackmore, Ivy; Hettiarachchi, Upeksha; Davis, Kristin E.

Citation

Bell, Andrew R.; Zhang, Wei; Oingo, Balentine; Kinuthia, Dickson; Blackmore, Ivy; et al. 2025. Games-based learning for aggregated farming in western Kenya. Presented at the 7th European Seminar on Extension & Education Inclusivity and transformations of agricultural extension and education in Vila Real, Portugal, June 30-July 4, 2025. https://leo.it.tab.digital/s/YbDWTSmtMc6C3mL?dir=/Book%20of%20Abstracts&editing=false&openfile=true.

Country/Region

Kenya

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Eastern Africa; Experiential Learning; Aggregate Data; Farming

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18111916 Source record

Project

Nature-Positive Solutions

Record type

Conference Paper

Events

IFPRI @ CGIAR Science Week
IFPRI at External Event

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April 7 to 12, 2025

IFPRI @ CGIAR Science Week

When humanity has faced its greatest challenges, science and innovation have provided solutions. Today, major and connected global challenges threaten the sustainability of food, land, and water systems, with the most vulnerable people and communities at greatest risk. Recognizing the urgency of these challenges, CGIAR and the Kenyan Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) are […]

From Research to Impact: Towards just and Resilient Agri-food Systems
IFPRI Program/Country Event

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October 9 to 12, 2023

From Research to Impact: Towards just and Resilient Agri-food Systems

Conference: October 09, 2023 – 9:00 AM to October 12, 2023 – 6:00 PM IST. IFPRI is participating in the 2023 annual CGIAR gender research conference will take place in New Delhi, India.