Hale Ann Tufan

Research Focus

Tufan’s research program examines how agricultural research processes and outputs can positively contribute to gender equality and social inclusion. Her research is focused in three primary areas: 

Frameworks and approaches for inclusive crop improvement 

Tufan critically interrogates systemic norms and power in crop improvement with the intended outcome developing programs that are inclusive and equitable. Her work explores the role of social identities — gender, age, education, and more — in the design and adoption of agricultural innovations. 

Innovative tools and methods that integrate plant breeding and gender research

Tufan’s work centers on developing, testing and implementing participatory and interdisciplinary research approaches in crop improvement research, such as adoption of crop varieties and differences in trait preferences. Her focus on a gender and social difference analysis integrates social identities and household characteristics that interact with gender to shape trait preferences and determine the success of new varieties. 

Intrahousehold dynamics, social norms and gender relations in seed systems

With attention to gender roles, relations, and inequities to technological uptake, Tufan seeks to understand how intrahousehold dynamics shape crop trait preferences, varietal adoption and seed systems, and how individuals within households experience benefits from technology adoption.

Current Research Programs

Muhogo Bora: Cassava for All

Muhogo Bora, which means "better cassava" in Swahili, provides support to develop and expand cassava seed systems in Tanzania with targeted outreach to the Western Zone, Central and Southern Highlands regions. The program seeks to increase the participation of women, youth and rural farmers from geographically-underserved regions in cassava markets. By focusing on best agronomic practices and digital knowledge assets, Muhogo Bora seeks to increase efficiency in seed multiplication and root production.

Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Crop Improvement

The Innovation Lab for Crop Improvement equips National Agricultural Research Institutes with the power to define their unique goals and drive advancement in crop improvement to reduce malnutrition, hunger and provide equitable benefits to women and youth. Our work is advancing plant breeding tools, technologies and methods aimed at delivering staple crops (roots, tubers and banana, millets, sorghum, and legumes) that can increase yields, enhance nutrition and show greater resistance to pests and diseases.

Gender Responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation 

GREAT delivers training to agricultural researchers from sub-Sarahan Africa in the theory and practice of gender-responsive research, seeking to increase opportunities for equitable participation and the sharing of benefits from agricultural research and improve the outcomes for smallholder women farmers, entrepreneurs, and farmer organizations across sub-Saharan Africa. By building and engaging communities of researchers equipped with the skills, knowledge, and support systems to develop and implement gender-responsive projects, GREAT advances gender-responsiveness as the norm and standard for agricultural research.

NextGen Cassava 

The NextGen Cassava Breeding project seeks to modernize partner cassava breeding institutions in Africa and use cutting-edge tools for efficient delivery of improved varieties of cassava. The ultimate beneficiaries of this project are the cassava farmers of sub-Saharan Africa, who will receive improved varieties that increase fresh root yields, are more resilient to devastating virus diseases, and exhibit other traits preferred by smallholder farmers.

RTB Breeding

The RTB Breeding project aims to contribute, through the development of market-preferred, gender-sensitive, and climate-resilient roots, tubers and bananas, to poverty alleviation, food and nutrition security, and overall quality of life of smallholder farmers, processors, and consumers in rural and urban areas

Feed the Future Insect-Resistant Eggplant Partnership

The Feed the Future Insect-Resistant Eggplant Partnership empowers scientists in Bangladesh and the Philippines to develop new, locally adapted varieties of eggplant while engaging with policymakers on clear regulatory pathways for their release. As Gender Research Lead, Tufan studies whether biotechnology products equitably benefit women, men, and young people within households that adopt them in Bangladesh. Looking beyond household level income benefits, the study examines how gender norms and intrahousehold dynamics specifically shape positive or negative outcomes for women and youth.

Selected Peer-reviewed publications

• *Occelli M, Compaore E, Rubin D, Barry F, Brown D, Poda LS, Traore F, Waongo A  and Tufan HA (2024). Crowdsourcing priority setting for impact: an ex-ante framework in crop breeding. Agricultural Systems https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2024.103952
• *Nanyonjo AR, Angudubo S, *Iragaba P, Nuwamanya E, Esuma W, Ozimati A, Wembabazi E, Kanaabi M, Muhumuza N, Bayiyana I, Brown D,  van Etten J, de Sousa K, Tufan HA and Kawuki RS (2024). Participatory and decentralized on-farm evaluation of elite cassava breeding clones in Uganda. Crop Science https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.21293
• *Occelli M, *Mukerjee R, Miller C, Porciello J, Puerto S, Garner E, Funes M, Gómez M and Tufan HA (2024). Trait prioritization in crop breeding programs: a scoping review on tools and methods. Nature Plants https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-024-01639-6
• de Sousa K, van Ette, J, Manners R et al. (2024) The tricot approach: an agile framework for decentralized on-farm testing supported by citizen science. A retrospective. Agronomy for Sustainable Development https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-023-00937-1
• Cullen B, Snyder KA, Rubin D and Tufan HA (2023). "They think we are delaying their outputs". The challenges of interdisciplinary research: Understanding power dynamics between social and biophysical scientists in international crop breeding teams. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2023.1250709
• Liani M, Cole S, Mwakanyamale D, Baumung L, Saleh N, Webber A, Tufan HA, Kapinga R (2023). Uneven ground? Intersectional gender inequalities in the commercialized cassava seed system in Tanzania. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2023.1155769
• *Tarjem I and Tufan HA (2023) The Men Who Feed the World? Putting Masculinities on the Agenda for Crop Breeding Research for Development. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2023.1243217
• van Etten J, de Sousa K, Cairns JE, Dell’Acqua M, Fadda C, Guereña D, Heerwaarden JV, Assefa T, Manners R, Müller A, Enrico Pè, Polar V, Ramirez-Villegas J, Solberg SO, Teeken B, Tufan HA (2023)  Data-driven approaches can harness crop diversity to address heterogeneous needs for breeding products. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2205771120
• Brzozowski L, Hanson S, Jannink J, Meints B, Moore V, Tufan HA and Villwock S (2022). Towards Equitable Public Sector Plant Breeding In The US. Crop Science https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20800
• *Balogun I, *Garner E, Amer P, Fennessy P, Teeken B, Olaosebikan OA, Abolore B, Madu T, Okoye B, Santos B, Byrne T, Martin-Collado D, Egesi C, Kulakow P and Tufan HA (2022). From Traits to Typologies: Piloting New Approaches to Profiling Trait Preferences along the Cassava Value Chain. Crop Science, https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20680
•  Teeken B, *Garner E, Agbona A, Balogun I, Olaosebikan OA, Abolore B, Madu T, Okoye B, Egesi C, Kulakow P and Tufan HA (2021). Beyond ‘women’s traits’: Exploring how gender, social difference and household characteristics influence trait preferences. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2021.740926
• Tufan HA, Mangheni M, Boonabaana B, Asiimwe E, Jenkins D, Garner E (2021). GREAT Expectations: Building a model for applied gender training for crop improvement. Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security, https://doi.org/10.19268/JGAFS.622021.1
•  Mangheni M, Boonabaana B, Tufan HA, Asiimwe E, Jenkins D (2021). A competency framework for applied interdisciplinary gender and agricultural research training programmes. Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security, https://doi.org/10.19268/JGAFS.622021.3
• Polar V, Ashby JA, Thiele G and Tufan HA (2021). When Is Choice Empowering? Examining Gender Differences in Varietal Adoption through Case Studies from Sub-Saharan Africa. Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.3390/su13073678 
• Acevedo M, Zinyengere N, Cichy K, Meng S, Tufan HA, Pixley K, Bizikova L, Isaacs K, Ghezzi-Kopel K  and  Porciello J. (2020). Evidence Synthesis: determinants of adoption of climate resilient crops and crop varieties by small-scale producers in low-and middle-income countries. Nature Plants, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-020-00783-z
• Coffman WR, Acevedo M, Evanega SD, Porciello P, Tufan HA and McCandless L (2020).VIEWPOINT: Five recommendations for an inclusive and collaborative One CGIAR. Food Policy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2020.101831
• Thiele G, Dufour D, Vernier P, Mwanga ROM, Parker ML, Schulte Geldermann E, Teeken B, Wossen T, Gotor E, Kikulwe, Tufan H, Sinelle S, Kouakou AM, Friedmann M, Polar V and Hershey C (2020). A review of varietal change in roots, tubers and bananas: consumer preferences and other drivers of adoption and implications for breeding. International Journal of  Food Science and Technology, https://doi.org/10.1111/ijfs.14684
• Forsythe L, Tufan HA, Bouniol A, Klein U and Fliedel G (2020). An interdisciplinary and participatory methodology to develop inclusive quality profiles for root, tuber  and banana crops in sub-Saharan Africa.  International Journal of  Food Science and Technology, https://doi.org/10.1111/ijfs.14680 
• *Iragaba P, Kawuki RS, Bauchet G, Punna R, Tufan HA, Earl ED, Gore MA and Wolfe MD (2019) Genomic characterization of Ugandan smallholder farmer-preferred cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) varieties. Crop Science, https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20152
• Teeken B, Olaosebikan O, Haleegoah J, Oladejo E, Madu T, Bello A, Parkes E, Egesi C, Kulakow P, Kirscht H, Tufan HA (2018). Cassava trait preferences of men and women farmers in Southwest and Southeast Nigeria, what are the implications for trait prioritization within breeding? Economic Botany, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-018-9421-7
• Maruthi MN, Bouvaine S, Tufan HA, Mohammed IU, Hillocks RJ (2014). Transcriptional Response of Virus-Infected Cassava and Identification of Putative Sources of Resistance for Cassava Brown Streak Disease. PLoS ONE, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0096642
• Gibson RW, Wasswa P, Tufan HA (2013). The ability of cultivars of sweetpotato in East Africa to ‘revert’ from Sweet potato feathery mottle virus infection. Virus Research, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.virusres.2013.12.006
• Tufan HA*, Morgounov A*, Sharma R, Akin B, Bagci A, Braun H-J, Kaya Y, Keser M, Payne TS, Sonder K, McIntosh R (2011). Global incidence of wheat rusts and powdery mildew during 1969-2010 and durability of resistance of winter wheat variety Bezostaya 1 based on multi-location data. European Journal of Plant Pathology, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-011-9879-y
• Tufan HA, McGrann GRD, Magusin A, Morel JB, Miché L, Boyd LA (2009). Wheat Blast: Histopathology and transcriptome reprogramming in response to adapted and non-adapted Magnaporthe isolates. New Phytologist, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2009.02970.x
• Hale KL, Tufan HA, Pickering IJ, George GN, Terry N, Pilon M, Pilon-Smits EAH (2002). Anthocyanins Facilitate Tungsten Accumulation In Brassica. Physiologia Plantarum https://doi.org/10.1034/j.1399-3054.2002.1160310.x

Selected book chapters and reports

• Njuki J, Tufan HA, Polar V, and Campos H (Eds.) (2024). Gender, Power and Politics in Agriculture: Revisiting Theory and Practice. Springer
• Mangheni MN and Tufan HA (Eds.) (2024). GREAT Trainers Manual Book 1 and Book 2. CABI
• Mangheni MN, Tufan HA, Boonabaana B, Musiimenta P, Miiro R, Njuki J (2019) Building gender research capacity for non-specialists: Lessons and best practices from gender short courses for agricultural researchers in sub-Saharan Africa. In: Advances in Gender Research Volume 28, V Demos, M Segal and K Kelly (Eds). Emerald Publishing Limited
• Mangheni MN, Tufan HA, Nkengla, L, Aman BO, Boonabaana B (2019) Gender norms, technology access and women farmers’ vulnerability to climate change in sub-Saharan Africa. In: Agriculture and Ecosystem Resilience in Sub Saharan Africa: Livelihood Pathways Under Changing Climate. Y Bamutaze, S Kyamanywa, BR Singh, G Nabanoga, R Lal (Eds.). Springer
• Tufan, HA, Grando, S and Meola, C (Eds.) (2018) State of the Knowledge for Gender in Breeding: Case Studies for Practitioners. Lima (Peru). CGIAR Gender and Breeding Initiative Working Paper No. 3
• The Role of Gender-based Innovations for the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Toward 2030: Better Science and Technology for All (2016), WISET

Selected outreach publications

• Food Sleuth Radio:Gender equity and social inclusion in agriculture
• World Food Prize Borlaug Blog: Gender is a hot topic in agriculture, it is missing the point
• Excellent in Breeding Platform: New approaches to breed more inclusive crop varieties
• World Food  Prize Borlaug Blog: Take it to All the Farmers
• Chicago Council: The Beauty Of The Bottom Up: Making Crop Improvement Work For National Programs

• PLSCI 6940 People, Plants and Participation

• PLSCI 4230/6230 Equitable Crop Improvement: From theory to practice