Women and Agriculture, a gendered issue

Across many Sub-Saharan African countries, women are the main providers of food security for their families and are heavily involved in the different stages of smallholder farms from sowing to post-harvesting. Despite women accounting for 70% of smallholder farmers in Africa, only 20% has formal access to land (Abass, 2018). Villholth’s (2013:380) gave me an insight into small holder farms as a significantly gendered issue and the constraints of securing formal tenure rights which cumulatively leads to the disparity in farm credits, access to farming tools and technology and information available for women in crop production. This denies women in their rights for survival and lifting them out of the poverty cycle.  

Agriculture sustains the economic livelihood of up to 70% of Sub Saharan Africa’s working population (Muzari, 2014). Agriculture has long been a tool in sustaining food security, alleviation from poverty and stimulating economic growth, however Sub-Saharan Africa’s agricultural sector is under performing because women are not secured with equal rights to resources as men.

Small-scale water irrigation is an important provision for cropping incomes, especially during the dry seasons, where women face longer time in water collection. Despite having small potential expansion area for irrigation, the internal rate of investment for small-scale irrigation is much higher than for irrigation schemes of large scales (Vilholth, 2013). The map in figure 1 shows that only 4% of total agricultural land in Africa is irrigated (Burney,2013)  

Figure 1.0 Country comparisons between cultivated area for irrigation(Burney, 2013)

Women and Constraints in Small Holder Agriculture

1.    Land

Securing land tenure is paramount to increasing the adaptive capacity of women (Niang,2014). The following highlights the different law systems across Africa that tends to favor men in the ownership of land:

·      -Although both customary and statutory law does not discriminate women from obtaining formal land rights, it is mainly due to socio-economic reasons such as patriarchal chiefs who will not allocate land rights to women

·      -Widows and children of HIV/AIDs patients (normally females who contracts this disease) do not have the right to inherit their father or husband’s agricultural land

·      -In Southern Africa, the Customary Land Tenure system is dominant, where women will only be granted access to agricultural land through their fathers or husbands, however the title of the land is passed to the male line in the family

·      -In Zambia, in an virilocal relationship in which the woman lives in the husband’s village, in the light of their husband's death or divorce, the wife does not own the rights to cultivate the agricultural land and so forth return to their own village

·      -Constraints in undergoing title deeds procedure to land due to illiteracy of women

(Mutangandura, 2004)

This highlights female farmers as vulnerable groups in securing land rights for survival and income generation, especially widows and children of HIV/Aids patients.

In the allocation of land, women are often given land of inferior quality and smaller plots in size, which generates lesser yields compared to their male counterparts.

2. Financial Credits

Without formal land rights, it is also difficult for women farmers to secure financial credit, in which it is utmost necessary to obtain machinery, land, irrigation, labor and high quality seeds. In Kenya, it is reported that the tools female farmers use are worth 1/5^th of male farmers (United Nations, 2014)

All in all the limited access to inputs in production such as land and credits, women are often only able to produce subsistence crops for their families, which lacks the potential to generate high incomes (World Bank, 2010)

3. Farm work not considered as jobs

Farm work is considered as “reproductive work” ie. taking care of family members rather than “productive work” ie. income generating activities. Hence they do not earn income from farm work which may be a disincentive to work in agricultural production on top of other household duties. 

4. Rural agriculture extension services

Rural agriculture extension services refers to farmer education of learning new agriculture practices to increase agricultural productivity (Muzari, 2014). As women play a significant role in small holder farming, rural agriculture extension should be targeted towards female farmers. However, only 7% of female farmers in Africa has received extension service so far. 

5. Market

When selling produce, men are often able to penetrate into larger markets due to cultural factors compared to female farmers. This is as women are usually only able to produce subsistence agriculture for their own family, given inferior quality of land, lacking access to agricultural tools and the constraints in time for agricultural production due to reproductive household chores. Even when selling produce at the local market, they lack the utility and logistics such as transportation.

So forth, female farmers are disproportionately affected in agriculture despite their labor-intensive significance in the role of agriculture in Africa. Owing to  cultural hindrances and the difficulties in securing tenure rights which ties in with constraints in credits access and agricultural tools. With equal access to inputs, women are able to increase production yields by 30% (FOA,2019). Their lost contribution does has the potential not only for the self empowerment of women, but lead to greater economic productions and put an end to hunger. Hence closing the gender gap is important in agriculture and water management for small holder farms needs to be improved, which will be discussed in my next post.