Introduction
1. Agricultural and food security trends worldwide: an overview
2. Women's contributions to agricultural production and food security: current status and perspectives
3. Factors and constraints affecting women's roles in food security
References
Women are the majority of the world's agricultural producers, playing important roles in fisheries and forestry as well as in farming. Worldwide, women produce more than 50 percent of the food that is grown (FAO, 1995a). Moreover, in many places of the world, women are responsible for providing the food for their families, if not by producing it then by earning the income for its purchase. Finally, women are nearly universally responsible for food preparation for their families. All this they do in the face of constraints and attitudes that conspire to undervalue their work and responsibilities, reduce their productivity, place upon them a disproportionate work burden, discriminate against them and hinder their participation in decision-making and policy-making.
Unless urgent action is taken to remove these constraints and change these attitudes, there can be no hope of achieving food security for this and future generations.
This overview gives an outline of the current and changing roles of women in food security in the different regions of the world, particularly as food producers, in the context of global and regional agricultural trends. It looks at the major factors, including those at the macro-level, that affect and constrain women in their roles as food producers and providers. Finally, it recommends action to remove constraints and to promote conditions that enable women to carry out their roles in food security more effectively and thus promote the food security of all people, at all times.
This overview is based on and synthesizes the regional papers on "Rural women and food security: current status and perspectives" from Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Near East, prepared by the Women in Development Service (SDWW) of FAO as part of the preparatory activities for the World Food Summit.
The data presented come from these sources unless otherwise stated. Unevenness in information from the regions and countries is primarily the result of gaps in, or lack of, gender-disaggregated data and indicates where further information and data collection are needed.
1.1 Global
1.2 Africa
1.3 Asia and the Pacific
1.4 Europe
1.5 Latin America and the Caribbean
1.6 The Near East
The capacity exists to produce sufficient food for all of the people in the world. This requires, however, an increase in food production, particularly in low-income food-deficit countries. According to the World Food Summit Plan of Action, "production increases need to be achieved while ensuring both productive capacity, sustainable management of natural resources and protection of the environment" (para. 22). Sufficient food production alone will not guarantee food security, however, unless action is also taken to ensure access to food by all people.
Progress in attaining food security has been slow and uneven up to the present time. This situation is likely to continue well into the twenty-first century unless concerted efforts are made to remove the obstacles to food security and promote overall rural development and poverty eradication, especially in the countries most affected by food insecurity.
Overall, there are better prospects for growth in the developing countries, with significant exceptions. By the year 2010, it is predicted that most developing countries will have been able to increase per caput food supplies and decrease malnutrition. Much of sub-Saharan Africa, however, is likely to continue to suffer from food insecurity and parts of South Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean will still be in a difficult position (FAO, 1995b).
The lack of adequate incomes and purchasing power of large parts of the population is expected to slow down world agricultural growth. Predictions are that the world production of cereals will not grow in per caput terms, as a result of the slow growth of demand from countries and population groups with low levels of food consumption (FAO, 1995b).
There has been a shift in the general trend of giving low priority to agriculture as compared to industrialization. A new recognition is growing in many parts of the world of the crucial role of the agricultural sector for increasing export earnings, generating employment and improving food security. This has been combined with economic liberalization and privatization.
Trends in trade policies at the international and national levels are towards deregulation of trade, opening of economies to foreign competition and promotion of export expansion. According to FAO (1995b), developing countries are likely to turn from net agricultural exporters to net importers. For countries that depend on agricultural exports to finance food and other imports, this may negatively affect the food security situation. For other countries, it may indicate growing exports of manufactured goods, growing incomes and increasing food consumption.
National and transnational agribusiness dealing in commodities, pesticides, plant genetic resources and other inputs are likely to benefit from economic and trade liberalization. The globalization of food industries and the accompanying pressures to raise productivity and efficiency and to lower costs will have an impact on employment and wages of rural workers, particularly plantation workers, which may directly and negatively affect household food security (ILO, 1995).
Economic liberalization and privatization are major features of structural adjustment policies (SAPs), which aim at the rationalization of fiscal and monetary policies and the creation of a macroeconomic environment favorable to economic growth. SAPs focus on the reduction of public spending and price supports, the liberalization of markets, the reduction and elimination of agricultural and food subsidies and the elimination of marketing and transportation controls. These measures are likely to have a negative impact on small and poor farmers. Cuts in social services and the increase in food prices adversely affect the more vulnerable parts of the population, particularly women and children, and place a disproportionate burden of work on women who must make up for the services that have been cut.
Paradoxically, the rural people who produce the world's food also make up the majority of the world's poor and are among those most vulnerable to food insecurity (ILO, 1990). A high percentage of the world's poor are women .The trends towards economic and trade liberalization and privatization, which are intended to boost agricultural production and the economy, may well result in increasing food insecurity among poor farmers and other vulnerable population groups, unless measures are taken to ensure equitable access to food by all.
Some of the key characteristics, trends and issues of agriculture and food security in different regions of the world are given below.
Agriculture has long been the dominant sector in much of sub-Saharan Africa in terms of output, employment and export earnings. It accounts for approximately 21 percent of the region's GDP (FAO, 1994). Agricultural output, however, has been lagging behind population growth since the 1960s. Between 1965 and 1990, agricultural production grew at an annual rate of 1.7 percent, while the population grew at an annual average of 2.8 percent. Food imports, including food aid, in the region have increased substantially to offset the deficiencies, and in early 1994 represented about 10 percent of the food consumed. At current growth rates, the food gap is projected to increase to more than nine times the present gap by 2020 (Saito et al., 1994)
Table 1 Growth rates in Asia and the Pacific
|
|
GDP |
Agriculture |
Population |
GDP per caput |
|
East Asia and the Pacific | ||||
|
1970-1980 |
6.9 |
3.1 |
1.9 |
5.0 |
|
1980-1990 |
7.9 |
4.4 |
1.6 |
6.3 |
|
1990-1994 |
9.4 |
3.6 |
1.4 |
8.0 |
|
South Asia | ||||
|
1970-1980 |
3.5 |
1.8 |
2.4 |
1.1 |
|
1980-1990 |
5.7 |
3.2 |
2.2 |
3.5 |
|
1990-1994 |
3.9 |
2.7 |
1.9 |
2.0 |
Source UNDP: World Development Report 1993, Table 2; UNDP, World Development Report 1996, Table 11.
In contrast to sub-Saharan Africa, agricultural growth in Asia has shared in the general trend of rising economic growth in the region, and there have been significant improvements in food grain production per caput and calorie intake in most countries, especially in East Asia. Agricultural growth in comparison to population growth was particularly strong in the 1980s, although there has been a decline in the 1990s, as Table 1 shows.
Despite their divergent economic and social systems, both Western and Eastern Europe gave great attention to developing their agricultural sectors following the Second World War. By the 1960s, food production in the region was sufficient to feed the population of Europe, although this did not necessarily ensure food security for all sectors of the population. Today agriculture is in a state of transition in both Western Europe and the Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC).
Agriculture in Western Europe has been characterized by modernization, intensification of agriculture through the high use of external inputs, substantial farm subsidies and protectionism, which have resulted in surplus production. At present, agriculture is going through a period of adjustment as the countries of the region grapple with problems related to intensive agriculture: environmental quality, nature conservation, food safety, farm diversification and human development. The CEEC are undergoing a period of privatization and structural reform of agriculture and food systems, as well as dealing with environmental problems related to intensive food production.
Agriculture in Latin America has been characterized by the concentration of land in the hands of relatively few large landowners, with the consequence that smallholders and ladles farmers have little access to credit, water and productive resources. The agrarian reform programmes undertaken in most countries in the 1980s did not result in significant changes in patterns of landownership.
The economic policies that have been implemented in the countries of Latin America in the 1990s are based on economic and trade liberalization. This has exposed rural economies to the forces of the market and has resulted in lower public investment in rural areas. The incidence of rural poverty has been on the rise, with increasing poor health and malnutrition. On the other hand, these policies have been accompanied by democratization which pays heed to civil society, the need for sustainable development, gender relations, decentralization and local governments.
The Near East is predominantly arid or semi-arid and agriculture is primarily rained. Rainfall is both scarce and variable from one season to the next. Many countries of the region are considered water-scarce and, in 1991, only 7.3 percent of the land in the region was considered arable. Overgrazing, desertification, deforestation, erosion, waterlogging, salinization, urbanization, industrialization and the effects of political instability, civil strife and war have negatively affected land and water resources. Consequently, there is little potential in the region to expand its cultivation. The majority of farms are small (10 hectares or less) and occupy about 25 percent of all arable land. Given this situation, agricultural policies are directed to increasing agricultural yields rather than expansion of agriculture.
The self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) for major food commodities in the Near East decreased drastically from 1979/1980 to 1989/1990: the SSR for cereals decreased from 98 to 70 percent, sugar from 75 to 62 percent and meat from 99 to 85 percent. This has led to increasing dependence on food imports.
2.1 Women as food producers
2.2 Women's other contributions to food security
2.3 The "feminization" of agriculture
Women produce more than 50 percent of the food grown worldwide, according to FAO estimates (FAO, 1995a). While there are still insufficient gender-disaggregated data to give exact figures on women's contributions to agricultural production everywhere in the world, disaggregation of data is increasing. These data, together with field studies, participatory rural appraisal and gender analyses, make it possible to draw a number of conclusions about the extent and nature of women's multiple roles in agricultural production and food security. Women's contributions to farming, forestry and fishing may be underestimated, as many surveys and censuses count only paid labour. Women are active in both the cash and subsistence agricultural sectors and much of their work in producing food for the household and community consumption, important as it is for food security, is not counted in statistics.
The roles that women play in agriculture vary from region to region and country to country. Men and women often have complementary roles, sharing or dividing tasks in crop production, livestock raising, fishing and the care and use of the forests. In other cases, women and men have distinctly different tasks and responsibilities for certain crops and livestock, fish and forests. Where large-scale cash cropping has been introduced, the tendency remains for men to become involved in this sector, especially when it is highly mechanized, with women becoming increasingly responsible for household food production and small-scale cash cropping with low levels of technology. Women also supply a significant proportion of the agricultural labour on plantations.
Table 2 Global estimates of the incidence of chronic undernutrition by region
|
Region |
Year* |
Undernourished % total population |
|
Sub-Saharan Africa |
1979-1981 |
39 |
|
1990-1992 |
41 |
|
|
Near East/North Africa |
1979-1981 |
10 |
|
1990-1992 |
10 |
|
|
East Asia |
1979-1981 |
27 |
|
1990-1992 |
16 |
|
|
South Asia |
1979-1981 |
33 |
|
1990-1992 |
22 |
|
|
Latin America/Caribbean |
1979-1981 |
13 |
|
1990-1992 |
14 |
|
|
Total |
1979-1981 |
27 |
|
1990-1992 |
20 |
Source: adapted from FAOSTAT (1994).
*Three-year averages.
In sub-Saharan Africa, women contribute 60 to 80 percent of the labour in food production both for household consumption and for sale. A survey of national sectoral reports for Benin, Burkina Faso, the Congo, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, the Sudan, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zimbabwe found that women's contributions to household food production range from 30 percent in the Sudan to 80 percent in the Congo, while the proportion of women in the economically active labour force in agriculture ranges from 48 percent in Burkina Faso to 73 percent in the Congo (FAO, 1994).
While there are significant variations by country, overall women in Africa play a major part in sowing, weeding, application of fertilizers and pesticides, harvesting, threshing, food processing, transportation and marketing. Men are mainly responsible for clearing and preparation of the fields and plugging, and participate to a greater or lesser degree in the other agricultural tasks along with women. Women in some countries, such as Tanzania, participate fairly equally with men in site clearance and land preparation. In many countries, men are responsible for the large livestock and women for the smaller animals, such as poultry, sheep and goats. Women are also often responsible for feeding and milking all livestock. In fishing, men are generally responsible for offshore fishing while women are responsible for onshore tasks such as net making and repair, fish processing and fishing in rivers. In forestry, women are often responsible for seedlings and almost always for gathering food, fodder and fuelwood. In some countries, such as the Sudan, men and women have responsibility for different types of trees.
In Asia, women account for approximately 50 percent of food production overall in the region, with considerable variation by country. For example, women comprise 47 percent of the agricultural labour force in the Philippines, 35 percent in Malaysia, 54 percent in Indonesia and over 60 percent in Thailand. In Southeast Asia, women play a major role in rice production, particularly in sowing, transplanting, harvesting and processing (Karl, 1996).
Men and women in Asia often play complementary roles with a division of labour similar to those found in Africa. In Nepal, fodder collection for buffalo is exclusively a women's job. Women also prepare buffalo for ploughing, tend to cattle and other livestock, transplant seedlings, participate in harvesting and threshing and play a major role in horticulture. In Pakistan, women carry out 60 to 80 percent of the cleaning, feeding and milking of cattle. In both South and Southeast Asia, women supply a significant amount of the labour on plantations, producing tea, rubber, and fruit.
In the Pacific, women's participation in agriculture varies considerably. In Papua New Guinea where the population is overwhelmingly rural (87 percent), women comprise 71 percent of the agricultural labour force. Women are engaged in food production, mainly in subsistence crops but also work on coffee plantations. In Fiji, women account for 38 percent of agricultural labour. Data from other countries of the Pacific give a low percentage of women in the agricultural labour force, but studies show that data gathering methods have not captured women's labour in household food production and unpaid labour on family farms. Throughout the Pacific, women play prominent roles in food marketing and in fisheries.
In Europe, agriculture accounts for a relatively small percentage of employment for both men and women. In the European Union, the percentage of the economically active population (EAP) in agriculture ranged from 2.3 percent in the United Kingdom to 21.9 percent in Greece, in 1992. Of these percentages, women accounted for a low of 10.4 percent in Ireland and a high of 44.5 percent in Greece, in 1990. Likewise, in the CEEC, agriculture also employs a lower percentage of the EAP than do industry and the service sector. The percentage of women in the agricultural labour force ranged from 4 percent in Slovenia to 57 percent in Albania. In line with general trends in agriculture in both Western Europe and the CEEC, a growing number of women are leaving farming and those who are staying are tending to become more professional.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the rural population has been decreasing over the past few decades, as has the proportion of workers employed in agriculture. Whereas 55 percent of the population was engaged in agriculture in 1950, only 25 percent worked in agriculture in 1990. Women's contributions to agricultural production in the region are underestimated in official data collection and censuses, as women are mainly engaged in subsistence farming, particularly horticulture, poultry and raising small livestock for domestic consumption.
In the Near East, as in other regions, women's contributions to agricultural production have been underestimated, owing to the fact that their labour is mainly unpaid work in subsistence food production. Recent studies have shown that women's contributions are significant when unpaid and seasonal labour is taken into account: in Turkey, women account for 55.3 percent of unpaid agricultural labour; in Morocco, 53.2 percent; in Egypt, 50.7 percent; in Lebanon, 40.7 percent; in the Sudan, 34.7 percent; in Iraq, 30.7 percent; and in Mauritania, 28 percent.
Women are responsible for the more time-consuming and labour-intensive tasks of crop and livestock production: sowing, application of fertilizer, weeding, harvesting, transporting, threshing, winnowing, cleaning, sorting, grading and bagging. These tasks are carried out manually or with simple tools.
In addition to their crucial roles in food production, women contribute to food security in other significant ways, as described below.
As those who preserve biological diversity: The preservation of biological diversity and plant genetic resources is now widely recognized as essential to food security. Because women are responsible for supplying their families with food and care, they often have special knowledge of the value and diverse uses of plants for nutrition, health and income. Consequently, they are frequently the preservers of traditional knowledge of indigenous plants. Moreover, women often experiment with and adapt indigenous species and thus become experts in plant genetic resources (Karl, 1996; Bunning and Hill, 1996).
As those who process and prepare food: While women produce more than 50 percent of food worldwide, they also perform the overwhelming majority of the work in food processing in developing countries. Food processing contributes to food security through reducing food losses, contributing to diversity of diet and supplying important vitamins and minerals. In addition to the time-consuming tasks of grinding and pounding the staple grains and smoking fish and meats, women process and preserve the fruit and vegetable produce from their home gardens and from the forests. Moreover, women are almost universally responsible for preparing food for their households and thus for the nutritional well-being of household members.
As those who care for the basic needs of the households: Women perform virtually all the tasks required for household food security and for ensuring good nutrition and healthy lives. These tasks include gathering fuel and fetching water, cleaning, cooking, child rearing and caring for the sick.
As wage earners: Women are often responsible for providing food for their families, if not by production then by earning the income to purchase it. Both rural and urban women in waged labour dedicate a substantial portion of their incomes to the purchase of food for their families. Moreover, it is increasingly recognized that rural men and women often have different responsibilities for providing for the basic needs of their households, with women being responsible for supplying food. Development planners have discovered that the increase of household income through the employment of men in cash crop production does not necessarily increase household income available for the purchase of food (Karl, 1996). On the other hand, when women have direct control over income, they tend to spend it on the well-being of the family, particularly on improving the nutritional security of the more vulnerable members.
A phenomenon found in many regions and countries today is the trend towards the so-called "feminization" of agriculture, or the growing dominance of women in agricultural production and the concomitant decrease of men in the sector. This trend makes it more imperative than ever to take action to enhance women's ability to carry out their tasks in agricultural production and their other contributions to food security. This development goes hand in hand with the increasing number of female-headed households around the world. A major cause of both these developments is male outmigration from rural areas to towns and cities in their own countries or abroad, and/or the abandonment of farming by men for more lucrative occupations.
In Africa, where women have traditionally performed the majority of work in food production, agriculture is becoming increasingly a predominantly female sector. Economic policies favoring the development of industry, and the neglect of the agricultural sector, particularly domestic food production, have led to an exodus of rural people to the urban or mining areas to seek income-earning opportunities in mines, large export-oriented commercial farms, fishing enterprises and other businesses.
Overall, male outmigration has been greater than that of women. In Malawi, the female rural population decreased by 5.4 percent between 1970 and 1990, while the male rural population decreased by 14.9 percent. In the former Zaire, the decrease over the same period was 4.5 percent for women and 14.9 percent for men. There are exceptions, such as in Senegal and Uganda where the decrease in the female rural population was slightly higher than that of the male rural population. On the whole, however, women have been left to carry out agricultural work on their own, changing the traditional pattern of farm labour and the division of tasks between men and women. In Africa women now constitute the majority of smallholders farmers, provide most of the labour and manage farms on a daily basis (Saito et al., 1994)
This growing trend has been accompanied by an increase in the percentage of female-headed households in sub-Saharan Africa, averaging 31 percent of total rural households by the mid-1980s. The percentage varies greatly among countries, however, ranging from 10 percent in the Niger (early 1990s), to 46 percent in Botswana and 72 percent in Lesotho (late 1980s).
In Asia and the Pacific, the phenomenon of the feminization of agriculture is harder to trace, because of insufficient data. Asia has a relatively low percentage of female-headed households; only 9 percent overall in the mid-1980s and 14 percent when India and China are excluded. In the Pacific, the development of the plantation and timber economy is leading to an increasing burden on women in food production for household consumption. Few plantations hire women and some are not obliged to provide housing for families, leaving women increasingly alone to care for the family farms and community fields.
In Europe, various trends are at work. Farming is declining and there is an overall decrease in the number of both men and women active in agricultural employment. On the other hand, male migration and/or employment in off-farm activities is leaving more and more women in charge of the farms. There is also a trend, particularly in Western Europe, of women farmers becoming increasingly educated and professional. This is leading to the demand for greater support services for women farmers, and to a greater consciousness of the need for environmentally sound and sustainable agricultural development.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the percentage of female-headed households in rural areas is increasing significantly as a result of male migration, armed conflicts, abandonment and single motherhood. While official statistics from governments put the percentage of female-headed households at 17 percent in the region as a whole, a study carried out by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in 1994 indicated that this percentage was much higher in many countries: Costa Rica, 34 percent; El Salvador, 48 percent; Guatemala, 43 percent; Honduras, 29 percent; Nicaragua, 31 percent; Colombia, 29.1 percent; Ecuador, 37.1 percent; Peru, 43.3 percent; and Venezuela, 55 percent.
In the Near East, the feminization of agriculture appears to be less pronounced than in other regions. Overall the percentage of female-headed households is small, although their number is increasing as a result of temporary and permanent migration of men from rural to urban areas. In Egypt, Morocco, Cyprus, Tunisia, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic and the Islamic Republic of Iran, female-headed households account for 16 percent or less of the total. Only in the Sudan and Pakistan does the percentage of female-headed households exceed 20 percent. Consequently, in the Near East women's contributions to agriculture are frequently overlooked because most of their work is unpaid labour on family farms, headed by men.
3.1 "Gender blindness" and "invisibility" of women's roles in and contributions to food security
3.2 Agricultural development policies and research
3.3 Impact of environmental degradation
3.4 Access to resources
Given women's crucial roles in and contributions to food security, any efforts to reduce food insecurity worldwide must take into consideration the factors and constraints affecting women's ability to carry out these roles and make these contributions, with a view to removing the constraints and enhancing women's capacities. This section will look at some of the major factors and constraints affecting women's roles in food security.
Despite an increasing supply of gender-disaggregated data and studies of women's roles in agricultural production and food security, there is still a lack of sufficient data and information on these issues. Much of women's work remains "invisible", because it is not counted in surveys and censuses, which still often count as work only that which is remunerated or ask only about the principal work of a person. Thus, women, who may be involved (during the course of a single day) in working on the family plot, tending small livestock, fishing, gathering fuelwood, fetching water, transporting and marketing produce, processing food and preparing meals may not be able to define what their principal occupation is.
The lack of awareness of men's and women's specific and different roles in and contributions to agricultural production and food security results in what has been called "gender blindness". Unaware of these differences, policy-makers, planners and extensionists proceed as if they did not exist and as though the situation and needs of farmers were the same for both men and women. This results in the situation and needs of male farmers being taken into account, but not those of women farmers. Thus policy-making, planning and extension services are built on a partial view of reality.
All regions have noted this gap and the need for greater collection and dissemination of data and information on women's roles in agricultural production and in contributing to food security.
Development policy-makers and planners are becoming increasingly aware of the crucial contributions of women farmers to agricultural production and food security. Nevertheless, agricultural policies on the whole still do not address the needs of women farmers adequately. Where the roles and needs of women farmers are recognized in policy, this tends not to be adequately translated into practice in agricultural development programmes and planning. Agricultural research, too, gives inadequate attention to women farmers and their needs. As has been pointed out, for instance, women and men farmers are often responsible for different agricultural tasks and crops. Research is generally focused on the improvement of production and technologies for men's crops and tasks, while those of women are neglected.
National agricultural policies focus on export-oriented crops that are important for foreign exchange, and give scant attention to food crops for domestic consumption, although the latter are essential for household food security. Moreover, the importance of local markets for national food security is also often overlooked.
The lack of collection and dissemination of gender-disaggregated data is one of the underlying causes of the neglect of women's contributions to agricultural production and food security in agricultural development policies and research. Another root cause of this neglect is the lack of women's participation in policy-making and decision-making bodies at national and international levels. At the international level, for instance, women in United Nations organizations constituted, in the late 1980s, less than 5 percent of the senior management positions, less than 10 percent of senior professionals, and less than 30 percent of middle-level professionals. At the national level, the number of women in management and professional positions is generally even less. The exclusion of women from decision-making and leadership positions begins at the local level (Karl, 1996).
As the primary food producers in the world, women have a stake in the preservation of the environment and in environmentally sustainable development. However, because of their lack of access to agricultural resources, women farmers trying to eke out an existence on marginal lands often have no choice but to contribute to further environmental degradation. Lack of secure land tenure acts is a disincentive to environmentally sound agricultural practices, while lack of access to credit limits the purchase of less environmentally damaging technologies and inputs. These factors set up a cycle of declining productivity and increasing environmental degradation.
Access to resources Is essential to improving the agricultural productivity of both men and women farmers. Because women play crucial roles in agricultural production, improving productivity will depend to a great extent on ensuring that women farmers, as well as men farmers, have sufficient access to production inputs and support services. While both men and women smallholders lack sufficient access to agricultural resources, women generally have much less access to resources than men. The causes of this are rooted, to a great extent, in: gender-blind development policies and research; discriminatory legislation, traditions and attitudes; and women's lack of access to decision-making. Worldwide, women have insufficient access to land, membership in rural organizations, credit, agricultural inputs and technology, training and extension, and marketing services.
Some studies have shown that, when women farmers have access to resources, they are more productive than men farmers. For instance, it has been reported that in Kenya the average gross value of output per hectare from male-managed plots was usually 8 percent higher than from female-managed plots but, when women used the same resources as men, their productivity increased by 22 percent (Saito et al., 1994).
Land.
Shortage of good quality agricultural land for smallholders is a problem in many regions of the world as a result of environmental degradation, the conversion of land to non-agricultural purposes, population pressure and the consolidation of land in the hands of fewer and fewer large landowners, including transnational corporations. Access to land through ownership or secure tenure is the sine qua non of improving agricultural productivity. Without secure land rights, farmers have little or no access to credit or the benefits of membership in rural organizations which are often conduits of agricultural inputs and services. Moreover, with no stake in the land or assurance of access to it, farmers have few incentives to engage in sustainable agricultural practices or to consider the long-term environmental impact of the exploitation of the land.
Overall, women have less access to land than men for a variety of legal and cultural reasons that vary from place to place. In some cases, legislation has affirmed women's basic right to land but customary practices and laws limit women's land rights. In other cases, legislation has undermined women's access to land. This is the case, for instance, in many places in Africa where, under customary law, women were given access to communal or family land (although they would often be deprived of this access through divorce or widowhood). With the introduction of legislation regulating ownership of land, title to land is generally given to the male head of household. Agrarian reform programmes everywhere also tend to give title to men, and this has been especially the case in Latin America.
Without secure title to land, women are often denied membership in cooperatives and other rural organizations and thus to the benefits of such membership. They also lack collateral, which is generally indispensable for access to credit. In some places, lack of land title restricts the type of crops that may be grown. For instance, in Ghana, only landowners are allowed to cultivate tree crops, such as cocoa, which can be important sources of cash income.
Rural organizations.
Membership in rural organizations such as cooperatives, agricultural producers' organizations and farmers' associations, is important for access to productive resources, credit, information, training and other support services. Rural organizations also represent the interests of their members in relation to governments, project management and development policy-makers and planners at different levels.
When women farmers' access to membership and leadership positions in these organizations is restricted, by law or custom, their access to resources and their ability to make their views known to policy-makers and planners are also restricted. The obvious result is the inability of women farmers to carry out their roles in agriculture and food security to their optimum potential.
The same agrarian reform programmes that have given land titles to male heads of households and thus restricted women's ownership of land, have also restricted membership of agrarian reform organizations and cooperatives to male heads of household.
Even where women do have access to membership in cooperatives and other rural organizations, they make up a small minority of the leadership. In Zimbabwe, for instance, women constitute 75 percent of the officers. In Benin, women make up 25 percent of the cooperative members, but cover only 12 to 14 percent of the leadership positions (FAO, 1994).
Credit.
A direct consequence of women's lack of access to land and membership in rural organizations is their lack of access to credit. Land is usually required as collateral for loans, on the one hand, and on the other, credit schemes are often channeled through rural organizations to their members. This is a serious obstacle to improving women's agricultural productivity, as without credit women farmers are unable to buy inputs such as seeds, fertilizers and improved technologies, or to hire labour. Paradoxically, numerous studies have shown that women are more likely than men to repay loans.
Men and women farmers often have different responsibilities in agricultural production and food security, therefore both require credit according to their specific needs. It is thus important for women to have not only access to credit but also control over the use of the credit so that it is not diverted to male-dominated production systems, at the expense of women's productive activities.
A 1990 study of credit schemes in Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Zimbabwe showed that women received less than 10 percent of the credit directed to smallholders and only 1 percent of total credit to agriculture.
Agricultural inputs and technology.
With the decreasing availability of arable land, increasing population pressure and growing environmental degradation, it becomes more and more important to increase productivity in sustainable ways. This requires access to appropriate agricultural inputs and technologies.
The access of women farmers to agricultural inputs and technologies is constrained by their lack of access to credit and membership in rural organizations, and also by gender-blind development programmes and lack of attention to the needs of women farmers in research and technology development programmes.
It has also been noted, however, that women sometimes lose their land-use rights when the value of the land is increased through the introduction of new technologies, such as advanced irrigation techniques. Alternative technologies, which are also effective and easier to manage, can help ensure that women, whose agricultural production is essential to good security, retain their rights and ability to farm the land.
Because women farmers everywhere are engaged in a wide range of laborious tasks related to food security, there is a need for the development and introduction of appropriate labour-saving technology in food processing, storage and production, and in related areas such water, sanitation, fuel and food preparation.
Training and extension.
Women's access to training and extension is limited by a number of factors, among which is their lack of access to membership in rural organizations that often channel or provide training opportunities. Other limiting factors include: gender-neutral or gender-blind agricultural research that gives inadequate attention to women farmers' needs in terms of crops and technology; and a lack of awareness of different gender roles and needs in the curricula and training of extensionists who could relate to women farmers, which results in women's exclusion from training and the benefits of extension services. In some cultures, where men extensionists are able to work with women farmers, they are usually not aware of the needs of women farmers nor have they been trained to work with women. Studies have shown that the assumption that training and information provided to men will be transferred to the women farmers in their households does not hold true. Finally, women extensionists are still often trained only in home economics and do not have the skills to provide the services and information needed for agricultural production.
Marketing services.
Structural adjustment programmes and the trend towards liberalization of trade have led to the dismantling of many of the marketing services that were previously available to farmers. As those often primarily responsible for marketing, women farmers have been most severely hit by this loss. The decline in investment in rural infrastructure, such as feeder roads that link rural areas to markets, also affects women's access to markets. In addition, lack of access to membership in marketing cooperatives also limits women's ability to market their produce. These constraints act as a disincentive to women farmers to produce surplus food, since the difficulties in marketing it are great, if not insurmountable.
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