by D. E. Tempelman
Introduction
1. Regional trends
2 Overview of NGOs working for women and development in Africa
3 Inadequate policy support and impact of sectoral and macroeconomic policies on production and trade
4 Conclusions
5 Recommendations
References
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, 1994:1). Since the 1960s, the rate of agricultural output has lagged behind the rate of population growth. Between 1965 and 1990, agricultural production grew at an annual rate of 1.7 percent, over one-third less than the 2.8 percent average annual population growth rate. In the late 1970s, for the first time in history, sub-Saharan Africa became a net importer of food. The gap between agricultural output and population growth widened significantly during the 1980s, especially during the first half, when the agricultural growth rate fell well below its forecasted increase and population growth accelerated. Regional food imports (including food aid) increased substantially to offset the deficiencies, and in early 1994 represented about 10 percent of the food consumed in sub-Saharan Africa. At current growth rates the food gap is projected to increase to more than nine times today's gap by 2020 (Saito et al., 1994:1)
Woman preparing a typical dish
"In contrast to other parts in the world, where households customarily function more like a single economic unit with common goals, resources and benefits, the pervasive practice in the African region is that family members have separate, and sometimes competing, own-account activities. Thus, the individual rather than the household constitutes the basic unit of production in sub-Saharan Africa" (Saito et al., 1994:14).
Evidence is accumulating that poor women allocate a greater share of their individual incomes to food purchases than poor men. Women's incomes are significantly and directly associated with children's nutritional status. However, there is also evidence that the positive impact of women's financial/food contributions is negated by their excessive labour burdens as they do not have sufficient time for proper food preparation. Studies undertaken by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) show that resource-poor families are even more dependent than others on women's food production or earnings from waged labour and off-farm enterprises to achieve subsistence (Jazairy et al., 1992:275)
There is a growing recognition worldwide that gender bias and blindness constitute significant constraints that contribute to food insecurity given the critical role of women in determining and guaranteeing food security as food producers, food providers and contributors to household nutritional security. At the same time, there is growing evidence that reducing gender disparities promotes agricultural growth, greater income for women and better food and nutrition for all. The integration of a gender perspective that recognizes the different roles, constraints and access to and control over resources of men and women in agriculture and rural development must, therefore, be at the heart of any strategy for food security and poverty alleviation.
This chapter considers the impact of gender bias and blindness on agricultural planning and programme implementation regarding the situation of food security in Africa. It also studies the prospects for sustainable agricultural development, which can only be achieved if rural women's participation in the development process is dramatically increased through supporting strategies and rural development programmes that take into account gender-differentiated needs.
The chapter will first look at regional trends and will consider in more detail women's contribution to agricultural production. It will then look at the conditions and constraints that rural women in particular face and what can be done about these. Subsequently it will briefly touch upon positive experiences from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the region in alleviating poverty and food security related problems. Lastly, the chapter will present recommendations to improve rural women's situation, while supporting their productive roles in order to ensure greater food security at household and national levels.
1.1 Women's contribution to agricultural production
1.2 Female-headed households
1.3 Access to resources
1.4 Impact of environmental degradation
In the past, household units - men, women and children together - were responsible for the foodstuffs needed to maintain their families. A division of labour existed, but everybody worked for the direct survival of the family. With the introduction of cash crops, women's responsibility to provide the required food crops increased, while men's main responsibility shifted to the production of cash crops, often with considerable labour contributions from women. The adoption of commercial crop production was partly induced by the growing need to obtain cash, which is necessary for survival in increasingly monetarized societies.
In large parts of the developing world, increases in agricultural production have not been able to keep up with the rapidly increasing population, and population pressure in itself has contributed to expansion into less fertile zones and, at times, to a reduction of the productivity per area unit. At present, no single member of small landholder and landless households has a sufficient economic base to provide the required food supply for the entire family. The rural sector in many developing countries is increasingly characterized by the prevalence of poverty and food insecurity (FAO, 1990b:2).
Recent years have shown a new trend, most prominent in Africa, whereby male family members leave the rural household to try to find waged labour in the urban centres and increase the family income. The traditional gender division of intra-household rights and obligations is weakening, the gender-based division of labour is breaking down and farm women are increasingly undertaking tasks previously done by men (Saito et al., 1994:16-19). All this has further increased women's responsibilities to provide for family food requirements.
Table 1 Role of women in agriculture in selected countries in Africa
|
Benin |
70 percent of the female population live in rural areas, where they carry out 60 to 80 percent of the agricultural work and furnish up to 44 percent of the work necessary for household subsistence. |
|
Burkina Faso |
Women constitute 48 percent of the labourers in the agricultural sector. |
|
Congo |
Women account for 73 percent of those economically active in agriculture and produce more than 80 percent of the food crops. |
|
Mauritania |
Despite data gaps, it is estimated that women cover 45 percent of the needs in rural areas. |
|
Morocco |
Approximately 57 percent of the female population participates in agricultural activities, with greater involvement in animal (68 percent) as compared to vegetable production (46 percent). Studies have indicated that the proportion of agricultural work carried out by men, women and children is 42, 45 and 14 percent respectively. |
|
Namibia |
Data from the 1991 census reveal that women account for 59 percent of those engaged in skilled and subsistence agriculture work,* and that women continue to shoulder the primary responsibility for food production and preparation. |
|
Sudan |
In the traditional sector, women constitute 80 percent of the farmers. Women farmers represent approximately 49 percent of the farmers in the irrigated sector, and 30 percent of the food in the country is produced by women. |
|
Tanzania |
98 percent of the rural women defined as economically active are engaged in agriculture and produce a substantial share of the food crops for both household consumption and export. |
|
Zimbabwe |
Women constitute 61 percent of the farmers in the communal areas and comprise at least 70 percent of the labour force in these areas. |
Source: FAO, 1994.
*This estimate is considered low as the 1991 census included the subsistence farming sector for the first time.
|
BOX 1 Labour use per hectare on male- and female-managed plots: Kenya and Nigeria · In both countries, women provide most of the family labour on plots that they manage as well as on plots managed by men. · Averaged overall plots, Kenyan women provide 84 percent more family labour than Kenyan men, while Nigerian women provide 33 percent more than Nigerian men. · On a per hectare basis, the use of labour on women's plots is higher than on men's plots (31 percent more in Kenya and 37 percent more in Nigeria), possibly reflecting an attempt to substitute labour for purchased inputs. (Saito et al., 1994:54-55) |
In many African countries, rural women account for 60 percent of the agricultural labour force and up to 80 percent of total food production (Jazairy et al., 1992:274). The synthesis report on women, agriculture and rural development in Africa prepared by FAO for the Fourth World Conference on Women also indicates that women contribute 60 to 80 percent of the labour used to produce food, both for household consumption and for sale, in sub-Saharan Africa. Women's contributions to the production of food crops range from 30 percent in the Sudan to 80 percent in the Congo, while their proportion of the economically active labour force in agriculture ranges from 48 percent in Burkina Faso to 73 percent in the Congo and 80 percent in the traditional sector in Sudan (FAO, 1994:1-3) (Table 1).
Not only do women outnumber men in the agricultural labour force, but they also work more hours in agriculture than men. Box 1 gives an example of the situation in Kenya and Nigeria.
Table 2 on the average daily hours in agricultural and non-agricultural economic activities by gender for Burkina Faso, Kenya, Nigeria and Zambia shows that women farmers work on average four to six hours longer per day, excluding the hours that women spend on their reproductive tasks such as fetching fuelwood and water, cooking, cleaning and otherwise taking care of family members and children.
Despite high rates of unemployment, largely caused by high population growth, family labour supply at farm level has decreased, creating family labour shortages, particularly during the peak agricultural season, because of male outmigration. Hired labour cannot be used to overcome these shortages, partly because rural wages have increased as a result of out-migration and partly because most farmers - particularly women - lack the cash or credit with which to hire labour. Households are forced to adjust their cropping patterns and farming systems to fit labour availability. This is done through limiting the area cultivated and the amount of weeding or fertilizer applied, or by growing less labour-intensive crops such as cassava and thus reducing labour value added (Saito et al., 1994:59). Such adaptations greatly affect food availability and the food security situation since, not only does productivity decline, but the nutritional value of some of the replacement crops is lower. Box 2 describes what happened in a village in Ghana at the turn of the century and may now be more widespread.
The state of world rural poverty states that "the improvement in household food security and nutrition, and in food distribution between households, has, in many cases, proved contingent on women's access to income and their role in household decisions on expenditure". Furthermore it illustrates that women's work in an integrated agricultural/rural farm system contributes to the total joint output of the household as well as provides for a separate output completely managed by them. Improving women's productivity, income and quality of life therefore implies a multidimensional contribution to overall growth and development (Jazairy et al., 1992:274-275). Solutions need to be found for raising the productivity of both land and labour by generating and developing improved technology, accessible to men and women small-scale farmers.
Table 2 Average daily hours in agricultural and non-agricultural economic activities by gender (Burkina Faso, Kenya, Nigeria and Zambia)
|
|
Burkina Faso |
Kenya |
Nigeria |
Zambia |
||||
|
m |
w |
m |
w |
m |
w |
m |
w |
|
|
Agriculture |
7.0 |
8.3 |
4.3 |
6.2 |
7.0 |
9.0 |
6.4 |
7.6 |
|
Non-agric |
1.7 |
6.0 |
3.8 |
6.1 |
1.5 |
5.0 |
0.8 |
4.6 |
|
Total |
8.7 |
14.3 |
8.1 |
12.3 |
8.5 |
14.0 |
7.2 |
12.2 |
Source: Saito et al., 1994:21.
Table 3 Ranking of women's status index* (mid-1980s)
|
Ethiopia |
2 |
Cameroon |
44 |
|
Mali |
8 |
Angola |
47 |
|
Chad |
9 |
Côte d'Ivoire |
49 |
|
Nigeria |
10 |
Senegal |
50 |
|
Sudan |
11 |
Central Afr. Rep. |
51 |
|
Guinea |
13 |
Sao Tome and Principe |
52 |
|
Mauritania |
14 |
Rwanda |
53 |
|
Benin |
16 |
Madagascar |
56 |
|
Zaire |
17 |
Gambia |
57 |
|
Ghana |
19 |
Botswana |
59 |
|
Equatorial Guinea |
21 |
Kenya |
61 |
|
Zambia |
22 |
Congo |
62 |
|
Burkina Faso |
24 |
Uganda |
63 |
|
Sierra Leone |
27 |
Cape Verde |
65 |
|
Niger |
29 |
Mozambique |
66 |
|
Liberia |
31 |
Togo |
67 |
|
Guinea-Bissau |
33 |
Swaziland |
70 |
|
Burundi |
35 |
Gabon |
76 |
|
Malawi |
37 |
Tanzania |
78 |
|
Lesotho |
42 |
Zimbabwe |
84 |
Source: Jazairy et al., 1992:456-457
*The women's status index is a composite indicator combining a number of primary indicators for which data are available:
-women's health status (composite);
- percentage of women using contraceptives;
- female educational status (composite);
- female to male wage ratio.
|
BOX 2 Changes in the starch crop pattern (example from Tsito village, southeast Ghana) Women replaced yam with cassava cultivation when they had to take over the main responsibility for food crops in many households. They did so for the following reasons: * Cassava gives a higher output of starch per invested labour hour. * The labour input in cassava growing can be spread Over the whole year and weeding is important but not imperative for the growth of the roots. * Cassava grows well on the grassland that women prefer (it is less difficult to clear) and it can grow on less fertile land than yam. * When cassava is planted with small spacing, weed growth is reduced through lack of light. However, cassava growing also has some very serious disadvantages: * Cassava has a lower nutritional value than yam, with only 9 grams of protein per kilogram, compared to 21 grams in yam. * Although the labour required for growing cassava is less than that for yam, processing and storing cassava require much more time compared to yam. * Growing cassava on less fertile (grass) land obviously affects the yield. What is saved on clearing labour is probably lost in the much lower productivity of the land. * Traditionally, yams were intercropped with vegetables and legumes, adding valuable elements to the diet. Close planting, to reduce labour requirements for weeding, means that vegetables can no longer be intercropped with the starch crop because of the lack of light and soil nutrients. (Bukh, 1979:84-86) |
|
BOX 3 Households headed by women as percentage of total rural households | |
|
(mid-1980s) | |
|
Asia |
9 |
|
Asia (excl. China and India) |
14 |
|
Sub-Saharan Africa |
31 |
|
Near East and North Africa |
17 |
|
Latin America and the Caribbean |
17 |
|
Total 114 developing countries |
12 |
|
Least-developed countries |
23 |
(Jazairy et al ., 1992:279)
In sub-Saharan Africa, post-independence policies favoured industrial activity over agriculture and, as a consequence, few modern farming technologies have been developed, disseminated and adopted, leading to an overall declining productivity. The decline in productivity has been worsened by growing population pressure on land and consequent expansion into less fertile land. Farmers trying to maintain real household incomes have had to diversify their sources of income, resulting in increased male rural-urban migration and women seeking more income-earning opportunities around the farm, sometimes contributing to the further degradation of the physical environment (Saito et al., 1994:1).
FAO's Synthesis report of the African Region further states that "while such migration can increase remittances to rural areas and strengthen market linkages between urban and rural areas, it leaves rural women increasingly responsible for farming and for meeting the households' immediate needs. In Burkina Faso, Morocco, Mauritania, the Congo and Zimbabwe, women have taken over the tasks formerly carried out by men in addition to those for which they are traditionally responsible. ..... In other countries, such as Namibia and Zimbabwe, male migration, coupled with the almost complete female domination of the traditional farming sector, is a legacy of colonialism which encouraged rural men to provide cheap labour for mines, large white-run commercial farms, fishing enterprises and urban businesses" (FAO, 1994:5).
Table 4 Women-headed households in selected countries in Africa (in percentage)
|
Botswana |
45% |
¨ |
46% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Burkina Faso |
5% |
¨ late 1970s |
10% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Cameroon |
14% |
¨ late 1970s |
19% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Centr. Afr. Rep |
-- |
|
19% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Comoros |
-- |
|
16% |
¨ ¨ 1980-1984 |
|
Congo |
21% |
¨ |
21% |
¨ ¨ 1980-1984 |
|
Côte d'Ivoire |
-- |
|
16% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Ethiopia |
-- |
|
16% |
¨ ¨ 1980-1984 |
|
Ghana |
-- |
|
32% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Guinea |
-- |
|
13% |
¨ ¨ 1980-1984 |
|
Kenya |
-- |
|
22% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Lesotho |
45% |
¨ |
72% |
*1987 |
|
Liberia |
15% |
¨ late 1970s |
19% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Madagascar |
15% |
¨ late 1970s |
-- |
- |
|
Malawi |
-- |
|
30% |
*1987 |
|
Mali |
15% |
¨ late 1970s |
14% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Mauritius |
19% |
¨ |
19% |
¨ ¨ 1980-1984 |
|
Morocco |
17% |
¨ late 1970s |
17% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Niger |
-- |
|
10% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Reunion |
25% |
¨ |
25% |
¨ ¨ 1980-1984 |
|
Rwanda |
25% |
¨ |
-- |
|
|
Sierra Leone |
-- |
|
11% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Sudan |
22% |
¨ |
13% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Swaziland |
-- |
|
40% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Togo |
-- |
|
26% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Uganda |
-- |
|
21% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Tanzania |
-- |
|
19% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Zaire |
-- |
|
16% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Zambia |
28% |
¨ |
16% |
¨ ¨ |
|
Zimbabwe |
-- |
|
33% |
¨ ¨ |
Sources:
¨ UN, 1991
¨ ¨ UN, 1995b
* FAO, 1990a:100
Table 5 Economically active population in selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa (in percentage)
|
|
1970 |
1980 |
1985 |
1990 |
|
CÔTE D'IVOIRE |
||||
|
women (of total) |
38.1 |
34.9 |
34.7 |
34.2 |
|
men and women working in agric. |
76.5 |
65.2 |
60.6 |
55.7 |
|
women in agric. |
87.0 |
75.0 |
72.4 |
69.6 |
|
men in agric. |
70.0 |
60.0 |
54.3 |
48.4 |
|
GUINEA-BISSAU |
||||
|
women (of total) |
42.6 |
42.6 |
41.8 |
40.8 |
|
men and women working in agric. |
84.3 |
82.3 |
80.6 |
78.8 |
|
women in agric. |
92.9 |
91.9 |
91.4 |
90.4 |
|
men in agric. |
77.8 |
75.2 |
72.9 |
70.8 |
|
MALAWI |
||||
|
women (of total) |
45.3 |
43.9 |
42.6 |
41.2 |
|
men and women working in agric. |
90.5 |
87.0 |
79.5 |
75.1 |
|
women in agric. |
96.0 |
94.0 |
92.5 |
90.6 |
|
men in agric, |
86.0 |
75.0 |
69.9 |
64.2 |
|
SENEGAL |
||||
|
women (of total) |
41.3 |
41.3 |
40.3 |
39.3 |
|
men and women working in agric. |
82.7 |
80.6 |
79.5 |
78.5 |
|
women in agric. |
92.3 |
89.9 |
88.8 |
87.5 |
|
men in agric. |
75.9 |
74.0 |
73.3 |
72.6 |
|
UGANDA |
||||
|
women (of total) |
43.2 |
42.8 |
41.9 |
41.1 |
|
men and women working in agric. |
89.3 |
85.9 |
83.5 |
82.5 |
|
women in agric. |
92.3 |
88.7 |
85.9 |
82.5 |
|
men in agric. |
87.0 |
83.7 |
81.8 |
79.7 |
|
ZAIRE |
||||
|
women (of total) |
42.2 |
37.6 |
36.6 |
35.5 |
|
men and women working in agric. |
79.1 |
71.5 |
68.7 |
65.8 |
|
women in agric. |
97.7 |
94.7 |
94.0 |
93.2 |
|
men in agric. |
65.5 |
57.5 |
54.1 |
50.7 |
Source: World Bank, 1992.
The changing traditional gender-specific nature of farming patterns has resulted in a dramatic rise in the number of women de facto farm managers. This trend is most prominent in the Africa region, with nearly three times as many women-headed households in the rural areas as the average for the category, as illustrated in Box 3.
Table 4 on women-headed households in selected countries in Africa provides further details and shows that interregional differences vary greatly from 10 percent female-headed households in the Niger (early 1990s), to 46 percent for Botswana and 72 percent for Lesotho (late 1980s).
These changes in intrahousehold arrangements have had a profound impact on the role of women in African agriculture. Specifically, women now constitute the majority of smallholders farmers, provide most of the labour and manage many farms on a daily basis (Saito, et al., 1994:20). This has resulted in what is now commonly called the feminization of the agricultural sector in sub-Saharan Africa.
Saito et al., classify female-headed households into three groups: i) autonomous households recognized and accepted as headed de jure by women, mostly widows or single women; ii) households headed de facto by wives during the male head's absence for various periods of time, the degree of autonomy and independence of action of these female heads varying with ethnic mores and personal circumstances; and iii) polygamous households, where co-wives head economic subunits (of themselves and their children) within the household (Saito et al., 1994:22).
According to Saito et al., the main characteristics of female-headed households are as follows:
· women heads of households are younger than men in that position;· women heads of farm households in general have less education than men;
· children of female-headed households on the other hand, have on average more years of schooling than those of male-headed households;
· landholdings of households headed by women are much smaller than of those headed by men;
· families headed by women tend to be smaller in size and have fewer farming adults than male-headed households;
· female-headed households are relatively undercapitalized.
Taken together, the relative deficiencies in the major productive inputs, land, labour and capital, make the task of producing enough food more than usually difficult in female-headed households. When female-headed households receive few or no remittances, they tend to fall in the poorest category of households (Saito et al., 1994:23).
In addition to the decreasing numbers of male-headed households, overall male outmigration from the rural areas is larger than that of women, as indicated by the fact sheets on gender issues, published by the World Bank for selected countries. A compilation of this information is provided in Table 5 on the economically active population in selected countries in Africa. Between 1970 and 1990 the female rural population in Malawi decreased by 5.4 percent against 21.8 percent for the male population. In Zaire, the decrease over the same period was 4.5 percent for women and 14.9 percent for men. The difference between female and male rural outmigration is smaller in Côte d'Ivoire and Guinea-Bissau, but more men still left the rural areas than women. For the countries where proportionally more women have left the sector, the differences are very small: in Senegal, the percentage of women engaged in agriculture decreased by 4.8 percent, while that of men decreased by 3.3 percent between 1970 and 1990; in Uganda the figures were 9.8 percent and 7.3 percent respectively (World Bank, 1992),
|
BOX 4 Access to land In Tanzania, the taw gives women equitable access to land, livestock and productive assets. However, in practice such access is more often through male heads of households, while many rural women are not aware of their rights and obligations. For example, under the Tanzania Village Development Act of 1975, women have ownership rights but, in most cases, customary laws of inheritance, ownership and control tend to prevail. (Jazairy et al., 1992:882) |
The data on male outmigration from the rural areas thus confirm that women are becoming increasingly responsible, not only for the family food supply, but for the national food security situation as well.
Evidence is building that potential agricultural output is reduced as a result of women's lower access to and use of production inputs and support services. The report by Satio et al. shows that, while on average the gross value of output per hectare from male-managed plots in Kenya was 8 percent higher than from female-managed plots, if women used the same resources as men, their productivity would increase by about 22 percent. This potential productivity gain can only be realized by improving women's access to inputs and services (Saito et al., 1994:45).
Access to land.
Under colonialism three developments worked to the disadvantage of women in relation to their land rights: first, the introduction of private ownership of land; second, the introduction of new legal systems that tended to undermine women's traditional land rights; and third, the patriarchal nature of the colonial regime which worked to the disadvantage of all peasant farmers, but particularly women. Post-independence land policies have generally been gender-neutral in the sense of not actively discriminating against women, but this has not resulted in gender-equal access to land (Saito et al., 1994:45-46).
Even though many developing countries have legally affirmed women's basic right to own land, actual female control of land is rarely observed. A combination of administrative, economic and cultural constraints denies most rural women both ownership and effective control. The dual recognition of customary and civil law tends to allow for precedence being given to customary practices that limit rural women's marital and land rights (Jazairy et al., 1992:279-280).
Shortage of good quality farming land has become a critical issue for smallholders throughout Africa. Increasing population pressure and fragmentation of holdings have sharply reduced cultivated area per person. The World Bank estimates that in all zones about one-third of the holdings are below the calculated poverty threshold size. Women in general have much smaller farms and tend to have fewer plots. For them the situation is even more critical; faced with uncertain tenure and the decreasing size and quality of plots to farm, women have an exceptionally difficult task in maintaining levels of output and household food security (Saito et al., 1994:46,51).
|
BOX 5 Availability of land In Nigeria, households headed by males cultivate a mean area of 2.6 hectares, or three times that of the female-headed households (0.8 hectares). Even taking into account the larger size of male-headed households (7.6 people compared to 4.9 in female-headed households), male-headed households had twice as much land per caput as the female-headed households. (Saito et al., 1994:51) |
The most problematic aspect of women's customary land rights is lack of security. When male heads of household control access to land, women farmers can be left landless and destitute through divorce or widowhood. Secure land rights are important with regard to access to credit and membership of rural organizations. On the other hand, even the customary land rights of women have been increasingly threatened by agrarian reform programmes which have tended to redistribute land titles primarily to men (Jazairy et al., 1992:282; Quisumbing et al., 1995).
From a food security point of view, lack of ownership or having only customary land usufruct rights may have implications on what kind of crops can be cultivated. In Ghana, for example, only people with recognized landownership rights are allowed to cultivate tree crops (principally cocoa in the case of Ghana), which can be important sources of cash income.
Furthermore, the tightening land situation has resulted in incidences of people, usually women, being prohibited to collect wood and other forest products on land not owned by them. Forest products often provide important nutritional elements to the family diet especially during the agricultural lean season.
The report of Saito et al. noted that secure land tenure rights contributed significantly and positively to the overall value of total production of all plots, men's and women's taken together, and also men's plots taken separately (Saito et al., 1994:46).
As pressure on land increases and efforts to improve agricultural productivity intensify, it will be even more important to ensure that women have access to and control over adequate land. Security of tenure and landownership rights are more important to women than the quantity of land they cultivate. Because smallholders technology is labour-intensive and because of acute seasonal labour shortages, more land, even were it available, would not be a solution for increased production. Hence, smallholders, especially women smallholders, must gain access to more inputs and better technology so that the return on the land they have is increased; that is, their labour productivity is raised (Saito et al., 1994:53). Few data are available on women landowners. Table 6 gives information on women and landownership in selected countries of Africa.
Access to agricultural services
Credit. The assumption that loans must generate sufficient returns for repayments eliminates the possibility of credit for the subsistence sector. However, too little attention is paid to the fact that subsistence activities in food production and processing can be boosted by making credit available to small-scale farmers and that this often generates a surplus which is sold in the local markets.
Rural women's limited incomes, lack of collateral, higher levels of illiteracy and lack of information drastically constrain their access to almost all forms of credit from financial institutions and government agencies. An analysis of credit schemes in Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Zimbabwe found that women receive less than 10 percent of the credit directed to smallholders and merely 1 percent of the total credit to agriculture (FAO, 1990b:8). Women's access to credit is further constrained by their exclusion from cooperatives or other peasant organizations through which credit is often channeled to farmers. Their potential agricultural productivity and their ability to repay loans are often underestimated, although their repayment records have consistently been superior to those of male borrowers in credit programmes available to them (Jazairy et al., 1992:289).
Table 6 Women and landownership
|
Country |
Women's landholdings as percentage of total agricultural holdings |
Average size of holdings (hectares) |
|
|
Women's |
Men's |
||
|
Benin |
11 |
0.98 |
1.76 |
|
Congo |
25 |
|
|
|
Morocco |
14 |
0.5 |
1 |
|
Tanzania |
25 |
0.6 (1986/87) |
0.89 (1986/87) |
|
Zimbabwe |
Small-scale commercial sector: 3 |
1.86 |
2.73 |
Source: FAO, 1994.
This situation is a serious impediment to improving household food security and family welfare. Women's productivity in subsistence activities could be greatly improved by the introduction of new technology and, where necessary, hired labour, but these are hampered by women's apparent credit unworthiness, precisely because their main responsibility centres on subsistence produce (Jazairy et al., 1992:290).
Economic analyses have shown that returns from improved subsistence farming are at times higher than what can be earned from casual waged labour. It may thus be more profitable for a woman with a very small farm to take a loan to purchase yield-increasing inputs, to grow most or all of her family's staple food requirements and to pay back her loan by engaging in casual waged labour for a short period, than for her to work full time on other people's farms in order to purchase food. Poor women's earnings from casual waged labour are usually much lower than the net return on labour that could be obtained from cultivating their own food crops if yields were raised by using fertilizers, improved varieties or other improved technology. Credit is, therefore, a promising type of intervention to help poor and marginal farmers to increase the productivity of subsistence farming and livestock rearing.
Planners of credit programmes or at financial institutions should, however, take into account that:
· A generalized approach to credit delivery to poor rural households does not guarantee rural women access to credit, which may be diverted to production subsystems dominated by male members of the household. Women's access and control over credit need to be ensured.· The provision of infrastructure, extension training and marketing support to make women's enterprises more profitable is preferable to providing subsidized credit or resorting to the indiscriminate use of loan guarantee funds (Jazairy et al., 1992:291).
Given this, strategies for collaboration between rural development programmes/projects and autonomous decentralized financial systems based upon local saving capacities have been developed. This approach is based on the underlying principal that rural development programmes and decentralized rural financing systems can take up mutually reinforcing roles to promote the advancement of small-scale farmers. Decentralized financing systems have become increasingly successful in mobilizing rural savings that are reintroduced into the agricultural production systems in the form of small-scale and short-to medium-term credit.
The impact of financing institutions can, however, be hampered by the limited saving capacity within low-productivity subsistence systems. By helping to increase the productivity of subsistence farmers, development projects can assist them to augment their saving capacities. Thus, collaboration between rural financing systems and development programmes can help to ensure sustainable development in which productivity improving inputs are financed from local savings mobilized by the decentralized financing infrastructure. It is imperative to the success of such a collaboration that the financing systems operate autonomously from the programme or project interventions and that agreements concerning savings and credit delivery are negotiated directly between the financing system and the rural population. However, it would be in the programme/project's interest to facilitate the establishment of a rural financing system in its area of intervention, as this would contribute to the achievement of its objectives. A programme could, therefore, consider bearing the costs of the installation of a village bank and possibly taking up operational costs for the first one or two years, thereby speeding up the process of making savings available for credit delivery.
In 1993, FAO and the African Development Bank organized an International Consultation on Improving Rural Women's Access to Credit. In line with the recommendations of the consultation, FAO is preparing two project proposals, in Burkina Faso and the Niger, aimed at such collaboration between an existing decentralized financing structure and the development project. The objective of the projects is to increase the productivity, marketing services and infrastructure, and technical knowledge of small-scale farmers, and to improve the availability of savings and credit possibilities through the establishment of village banks. The projects target rural communities as a whole, although care will be taken that women partake in all the arrangements.
Farmers' organizations.
Participation in rural organizations such as peasants' associations, agricultural labour unions, cooperatives and project beneficiary committees increases rural men's and women's access to productive resources, information and training and may provide them with a way to sell their produce. Membership in these organizations also allows people to represent their interests to government authorities and project management. Rural women's access to these organizations is, however, often severely limited. While there may not be any law prohibiting women from becoming members, women are generally excluded because membership is based on landownership and/or a head-of-household criterion (Jazairy et al., 1992:296; FAO, 1990b:8).
FAO reports that "there is evidence that associations organized at grassroots level are more effective that those created for a particular project. Women's groups at both the grassroots and national levels have been effective in promoting the integration of gender issues into mainstream development activities and the participation of women in decision-making. However women's groups, at all levels, are faced with problems of inadequate training and skills and insufficient financial resources" (FAO, 1990b:9).
Agricultural inputs and appropriate technology.
The adoption of appropriate technology is required to help the farming community to maintain present production levels and to allow them to respond to increasing demands. Current cereal yields in sub-Saharan Africa are the lowest of all the regions of the world and a large part of the increase in cereal output since 1961 is the result of the expansion of area cultivated (47 percent). In general, farm sizes are decreasing and traditional soil restoration methods are becoming less feasible, yet the agricultural sector is expected to produce food for the growing rural and urban populations and raw materials for the industrial sector. Future agricultural development will have to rely much more on securing higher yields (Saito et al., 1995:7, 60).
Women farmers face multiple constraints in obtaining access to improved seeds, new crop varieties, knowledge about improved cropping systems and other forms of technology, as a result of:
· women's poverty and the fact that most of their productive activities are not market-oriented;· women's lack of legal rights to land, which constrains their access to credit and membership to farmers' organizations, further limiting their access to inputs, services and credit;
· women's crops and livestock activities having received little attention from research and technology development programmes;
· project designers', credit officials' and extension staff's assumption that women cannot afford to purchase modern inputs, nor to reimburse credit.
Concern with food security has begun to shift the focus of research, extension and input supply towards the food sector, but rural women have yet to obtain access to improved inputs in any significant way (Jazairy et al., 1992:285-286).
On the whole, Africa's women farmers have not been able to benefit adequately from the introduction of new technologies, which were too expensive, difficult to maintain, inefficient to use, inappropriate for crops grown by women farmers or harmful to women's health and safety. When introducing new technologies it is important to develop a process that ensures women's participation, ideally at the design stage as well as in training and dissemination. The search for technology appropriate for women should lead to packages combining traditional and modern ideas. Simplicity in use is desirable in technology for poor rural women (and men), but all techniques should be amenable to upgrading in order to avoid confining the rural poor in a low-level technology trap (Jazairy et al., 1992:286-7).
|
BOX 6 Appropriate technology New crop varieties are rarely tested or demonstrated on women's fields, so that agricultural researchers have learned little about women's specific problems with new varieties and women's needs with regard to crop improvement. (Jazairy et al., 1992:286) |
Women may respond differently from men to the introduction of new crop varieties because:
· they are more concerned about problems related to processing and/or storage characteristics, whereas agronomic research puts overwhelming emphasis on improving yields;· they are more alert to taste preferences, which may favor the decision to cultivate local crop varieties;
· they have what is called "a lower risk margin" in trying out new crop varieties, as whatever they decide, they first feel responsible for feeding their families. This is of even greater importance in female-headed households;
· the new varieties may require a significant increase in labour and a strict adherence to the timing of labour inputs. This may put pressure on women to neglect their own plots or other tasks essential to their families or personal welfare;
· high-yielding varieties often require a total package of additional inputs (fertilizer, pesticides) to enable the projected higher yields. This may be too costly for the poorer rural woman farmers;
· certain improved food processing technologies require quantities of primary produce to be processed at a scale beyond the individual woman, thus requiring group work, which may not comply with their business judgements.
New technologies may affect the value of land and have an impact on the users of land. Many examples exist of women farmers losing their land-use rights because the value of the land has increased as a result of improved technology. This is particularly true for irrigation projects. Since pump irrigation may involve high costs for mechanized land preparation and pump maintenance, very high crop yields are required to realize an acceptable return on investment. Obtaining these yields may require a significant increase in labour. It is often wrongly assumed that additional unpaid female family labour will be available to provide this increased labour demand. Alternatives such as tidal or gravity irrigation technologies can also improve the yields of traditional crops and may be much easier for project beneficiaries to manage and sustain on their own (Jazairy et al., 1992:284-285).
Improving food security at national as well as household level, requires increased efforts to solve the problems currently encountered, especially in crops cultivated by women farmers, and to reduce post-harvest losses, which at times mount as high as one-quarter or more of the harvests.
Training and extension.
Gender concerns still receive low priority in the planning and implementation of extension policies and programmes in many developing countries today. Women's full role in production-related activities needs to be brought into the mainstream of extension and training (Jazairy et al., 1992:287). Only 7 percent of agricultural extension services in Africa were directed to women farmers in 1988 and only about 11 percent of all extension personnel were women (FAO, 1989).
The basic constraints on women's access to extension in agriculture and livestock are:
· a relative lack of technical messages to improve the productivity of their agricultural activities, caused by inadequate agronomic research on traditional food crops (this constraint applies to both men and women farmers cultivating traditional crops);· the very limited number of women extension agents trained in agricultural subjects;
· a general perception that women are primarily homemakers rather than decision-making farmers. This perception rationalizes the focusing of extension services on male "farmers" who are expected to direct the work of female "family labour" (Jazairy et al., 1992:287), and is, perhaps, the most important of the constraints on women's access to extension.
|
BOX 7 Impact of equal training and education Yields among Kenyan women farmers could increase by 9 to 24 percent if women had the same experience, education and inputs as men. Yields could increase by 24 percent if all women farmers had primary schooling in Kenya. (Quisumbing, 1995) |
Planners often complain of agricultural programmes that there are so few women extension workers. Jazairy et al. note that in Zimbabwe more women were found to participate in extension activities when female agents were used (Jazairy et al., 1992:288). In certain cultural settings women farmers feel more comfortable discussing their cropping problems with women extension agents. However, this argument is also frequently used to defend a general lack of gender sensitivity in agricultural extension programmes. Experience from Ghana shows that women farmers may prefer male extension agents since women extension agents sometimes have a lower status, because of an actual or perceived lack of technical knowledge, and are therefore taken less seriously than their male counterparts.
In most African countries, extension services are mainly implemented by men and it will be difficult to increase the number of women extensionists in the immediate future because fewer female students have the educational background to take up agricultural studies. Thus, there is a clear need for the retraining of male extension workers to teach them how to work with women farmers, and at the same time a need for additional training of women extension agents to improve their agricultural knowledge.
|
BOX 8 Women and agricultural extension In Kenya, 98 percent of women work full time In terming and around 35 percent of all smallholdings are run by women. Agricultural technical messages were therefore mainly targeted at women farmers under IFAD's National Extension Project. Many of the new techniques were easily adopted and the yields of major crops increased substantially as a result of the project: maize (28 percent), beans (80 percent) and potatoes (84 percent). Two factors stood out in the achievements of the Kenyan National Extension project: the use of traditional village work groups, common under Kenyan rural customs, to spread technical assistance greatly improved women's access to the extension services; and a stronger link between research and extension further facilitated the adoption of new technology. (Jazairy et al., 1992:287) |
|
BOX 9 Unexpected impact of a unified extension system In 1692, Ghana restructured its extension services and; all agents working in the rural areas were joined in one unified system to reduce confusion among the farmers. There are indications that under the unified extension system women farmers receive even fewer extension services, as ex-home economists, who previously visited women farmers, are now fully occupied by "agricultural targets" in their programmes, following male colleagues in their pattern to discuss these with male farmers. (Diana E. Templeman) |
Lastly, the Jazairy et al report observes that development projects are major sources of access to improved inputs, technology, training and credit for a wide range of farm and off-farm enterprises. These essential resources, however, are usually targeted at "households" with an implicit or even explicit orientation towards men. Many studies have demonstrated that when men receive resources and training, the benefits rarely "trickle down" to women. Women's own enterprises are improved only if women themselves gain access to new inputs, in order to break the vicious circle of low productivity. Such access, however, must result in improved income that women can control and use to purchase the inputs they require (Jazairy et al., 1992:285).
Marketing services.
In many cases, the main obstacle to rural women in raising production above the family's subsistence needs is a lack of marketing outlets which is more problematic for women than for men. Unless there are infrastructural facilities, such as feeder roads, that link areas to markets, farmers, including women farmers, have no incentive to produce surpluses (FAO, 1990b:11). Export crop marketing systems often bring marketing services directly to the village, while the marketing of food crops and other products of women's micro-enterprises must rely on informal arrangements with private traders or on the producer's own efforts to transport her output to local or urban markets (Jazairy et al., 1992:288-289).
Women farmers face additional problems in marketing their produce. Their marketing prospects are hampered by:
· little or no access to formal marketing channels;· the additional barriers they face as small farmers, related to state licensing requirements, quality or sanitary regulations, which impede women's competition with the large-scale producers;
· insufficient working capital, poor storage and lack of transport facilities, which contribute to high unit costs of marketing, thus reducing women's profit margins;
· lack of market information, decreasing their bargaining power;
· limited access to lucrative, more distant, markets, owing to women's lack of time (given their heavy workloads and double/triple responsibilities) and, at times, to lack of control over their own income, forcing women to hide their marketing activities (Jazairy et al., 1992:289).
Various studies have shown that market opportunities and transport facilities can stimulate women farmers to produce food surpluses. Equal participation of women in production and marketing cooperatives plays a significant role in encouraging women farmers to produce surpluses for markets and thus augment the household income and contribute to improving the food security situation. Furthermore, women need training in marketing, accounting and management skills (FAO, 1990b:11).
|
BOX 10 Retraining of male extension agents FAO's Regional Office for Africa has had positive experiences with retraining of male and female extension agents. In collaboration with the Department of Agricultural Extension and the Department of Women in Agricultural Development, both of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the University of Ghana, pilot training was arranged on improving extension services for women farmers for the extension team of one region in Ghana. During the training, participants suggested ways of modifying their monitoring forms, to include explicitly men and women farmers contacted or to invite specifically women farmers to their annual meetings to plan the following year's extension activities. The success of the training is best indicated by the closing remarks of the Regional Coordinator: "I did not expect to learn anything new during this course, but now I have to acknowledge that more can be done to improve agricultural extension services to women farmers in our region." (Diana E. Templeman) |
|
BOX 11 Impact of land degradation on food security In Zimbabwe and Namibia, environmental degradation (deforestation, soil erosion and loss of biological diversity) has been accelerated by the policies introduced under colonial and white rule which allocated the poorest land to black farmers. As the population pressure on the fragile land base increases, land units per household have decreased and, to compensate, unsuitable land is cleared for agriculture, causing soil erosion and decreasing land fertility and productivity. Wetlands have been lost, resulting in food and water shortages during periods of drought, when these areas would have previously served as a source of water. Women farmers are the hardest hit among smallholders. In Zimbabwe, for example, the highest percentage of women farmers Is found in the semi-arid lands with marginal agricultural potential. Surveys suggest that the percentage of women with their own land allotment, as opposed to those providing agricultural labour on mate relatives' land, increases as the agricultural potential of the land decreases. (FAO, 1994:4). |
Degradation of the environment is a global phenomenon, but its impact is more strongly felt among the poorer segments of the rural population because the degradation of their natural resource base is significantly worsening their poverty. Rural poverty and the degradation of the environment are mutually reinforcing; when people's survival is at stake they are increasingly forced to farm marginal soils, to reduce fallow periods, to cut vital forests, to overstock fragile rangelands and to overfish rivers, lakes and coastal waters (Jazairy et al., 1992:305).
The following is crucial for understanding the complex relations between poverty, land degradation, high birth rates and diminishing food security: poor smallholders who till land in the most ecologically fragile regions need to maintain high fertility levels to satisfy the labour demand for maintaining household subsistence on lands with diminishing returns, because of the lack of capital to invest in labour-saving/productivity-increasing technologies. The most affected are women agricultural producers on overworked, degraded, shrinking and increasingly distant cultivable land, while the availability of male adult labour decreases as a result of male outmigration to the urban centres. Because women farmers do not have access to modern, labour-saving or environmentally sound farming techniques, increasingly hard and time-consuming work is required on their plots, which are often more susceptible to erosion, desertification and other forms of land degradation (Roca, 1994:3-4).
Access rights to land and pasture are critical in motivating investment for conservation. Women's lack of security in landownership and tenure reduces the likelihood that they will adopt environmentally sustainable agricultural practices. In addition, insecurity of land tenure reduces women's access to credit, which could be used to rehabilitate eroded soils or to implement labour-saving technologies. Increased productivity results in reduced labour need, which would allow for decreasing fertility rates which, in the end, would positively influence the food security situation.
Environmental degradation has a direct impact on the household's food security situation. Roca explains that, where soil fertility has been drastically reduced as a result of overcropping, deforestation, overgrazing, erosion and so forth, or where there is a lack of fuelwood and potable water, women are often forced to change the dietary practices and standards of their families. Sometimes this means reducing the number of hot meals per day, and substantially lowering family levels of nutrition, as some staple foods cannot be digested without prolonged cooking (Roca, 1994:4).
Unless environmentally sound farming practices are introduced on a large scale, the growth of the agricultural sector will be short-term only. The worst hit however, will be the subsistence food producers, that is, the majority of the population in the region. Among them, the most affected will continue to be the women (Roca, 1994:6).
2.1 Uganda
2.2 Ethiopia
2.3 Burkina Faso
2.4 Regional networks
NGOs have greatly contributed to the recent upsurge in gender awareness in sub-Saharan Africa, owing to a large extent, to their ability to influence development policies and their capacity to reach and have an impact on large sections of civil society. The success of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the role of NGOs in activities leading up to and during the conference bear testimony to the importance of gender-specialized NGOs in creating the appropriate policy and socio-economic environment for the improvement of the status of women in Africa. It is not surprising, therefore, that in some countries in the region, it is the NGO community that is taking the pioneering role in the follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women.
In other areas of socio-economic empowerment of women, it is NGOs that have made the most visible strides in improving the lot of African women, especially rural women. Specific examples of NGO activities in the area of gender and development follow.
Action for Development, a national NGO for women, is helping Ugandan women to break through the inhibiting social, cultural, political and economic barriers. It ran a comprehensive countrywide civic awareness programme called the Link prior to the election of candidates to Uganda's Constituent Assembly.
The Link programme included seminars, interviews and discussions with people at grassroots level. Rural radio and television programmes facilitated and maintained public interest in the political debates during the final phase of the constitution-making process.
Useful lessons for NGOs drawn from the Link initiative are that: 1) programmes to mobilize people need to take account of their environment (rural or urban); and 2) mobilization activities should be properly timed in relation to local schedules (planting seasons, market days, etc.).
The Ethiopian NGO umbrella organization, Christian Relief and Development Association, organized an expo-workshop on the theme of women and development. This was essentially a forum for information exchange and to review the diverse projects of its membership. The workshop analyzed gender issues and discussed the results of a survey of members in this sector.
Results of the survey indicated that 50 percent of the organizations had gender and development components in their programmes; more than half the staff of 24 percent were women; and 75 percent had programmes specifically designed to upgrade their female staff.
In Burkina Faso there are two NGO networks for women:
· Femmes Africaines et Droits Humains (REFAD) based in Ouagadougou, whose principal objectives are to create active solidarity links among women in the subregion and to promote research on women's rights;· Reseau de communications d'information et de formation des femmes dans les ONGs au Burkina Faso (RECIF/ONG) which seeks to ensure that women involved in NGO programmes have access to training in capacity building and decision-making.
In Southern and Eastern Africa, MWENGO continues to be a strong reflection and development centre for NGOs in the region on issues including gender and development.
The African Women's Network for Population and Sustainable Development, based in Nigeria, covers anglophone countries in Africa. Measures are being taken to establish a parallel network in francophone countries.
Not all the interesting activities can be enumerated here. It is, however, clear that NGOs have a vital mission in Africa in supporting (rural) women in their development and thereby optimizing women's economic contributions to food production and food security.
3.1 Inadequate policy support
3.2 Impact of sectoral and macroeconomic policies on production and trade
Despite governments' growing awareness of the role of women in food production and food security, the agricultural development policies and programmes of most countries have not adequately addressed the needs of small farmers and in particular those of women. In order to promote women's interests, many countries established government bodies during the 1980s. These included fully fledged ministries or under-secretaries of state for women's affairs, or units located in or affiliated to ministries dealing with labour and social affairs. The major accomplishment in the area of agriculture and rural development has been to promote awareness of women's issues at national policy level. Attempts to implement food and agricultural development programmes and projects have had limited success, because of the lack of sufficient human and financial resources and of nationwide networks of staff and contact points (FAO, 1990b:11).
FAO's synthesis report on the status of women, agriculture and rural development in the Africa region illustrates that, in the late 1980s, national women's machineries played an increasingly important role, by shifting from a women-specific approach in development projects, programmes and policies. This shift has helped such machineries to break out of the marginalized position in which they found themselves by establishing focal points in the technical ministries that ensure women's needs and concerns are addressed in mainstream development projects and not just in those aimed exclusively at women (FAO, 1994:12).
Considerable progress has been made in institutionalizing Women in Development (WID) units within the technical ministries throughout Africa, and in sensitizing these ministries to WID/gender issues. Nevertheless, further advancement Is hampered by:
· a lack of coordination and communication with other relevant bodies;
· financial and human resources limitations;
· a lack of support from the ministries as a whole;
· a lack of comprehensive data on the nature and role of women's contributions to food and agricultural production (FAO, 1990b:11-12).
Within the framework of assistance to national preparations for the Fourth World Conference on Women, FAO assisted selected countries in Africa to prepare a report on the status of rural women and their progress since the early 1980s. One of the main constraints in this work was a general lack of statistical data. In addition, the major reason for underestimation of women workers in national statistical data is widely thought to be an inadequate coverage of women's unpaid labour on family holdings (FAO, 1994:13).
Food security policies
Food security is receiving increasing attention, but the significant contributions of women farmers are not sufficiently taken into consideration. This is partly owing to the fact that the concern with food security is greater at the national level than at household level, since national food security can have consequences for the balance of payments. The crucial role played by women farmers in achieving food security at national as well as household level is seldom taken into account. The fact that women farmers grow alternative food crops to the main staple, sell food surpluses in local markets and are those mainly responsible for processing and storing food crops is not taken into consideration in national food security policies (Safilios-Rothschild, 1994:57-58).
Planners and policy-makers rely almost exclusively on the official marketing statistics provided by marketing cooperatives and parastatals and overlook the importance of local markets for local or regional food security. Surplus food production by women farmers is not taken into account because women are under-represented in marketing cooperatives which often require landownership or official head-of-household status as a condition for membership. Women rely mainly on informal local markets, especially for crops that are not officially priced. The lack of gender-disaggregated agricultural statistical data reinforces planners' oversight of women farmers in their policies and support programmes.
Table 7, on food production per caput index for selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa gives a dreary picture of the results of food security policies and other policies to improve food production in a comparison of data from 1979-1981 with those from 1992. Out of the 41 countries for which information was available, only ten have managed to maintain or improve their per caput food production. Out of these ten, only three countries (Benin, Burkina Faso and Nigeria) have been able to do so in a significant way (25 percent or more increase in food production since 1979-1981). Four of the 30 countries that have not been able to maintain their per caput food production have seen this fall to around 50 percent of their 1979-1981 levels.
Pricing policies.
Gender issues have yet to be considered within the context of important macroeconomic policies in the agricultural sector. Safilios-Rothschild reports that in Kenya, for example, agricultural pricing policies have been found to create incentives for increased agricultural production and to promote smallholders production, but the impact of these policies on men and women smallholders has not been examined separately. "These pricing policies have favoured increased producer incomes and investment in cash crops (coffee, tea and sugar cane) and staple cereals such as maize, wheat and rice, but not in drought crops such as millet, sorghum and peas, oilseeds like groundnuts, castor beans, sesame and sunflowers, or other pulses such as beans" (Jabara, 1994, as reported by Safilios-Rothschild, 1994:58). Crops mainly grown by women farmers and of great importance to food security, especially in distress situations, have thus not benefited from the national pricing policies.
Policies on extension, agricultural credit and research
The availability, or more accurately the near non-availability, of agricultural extension, credit and research to women smallholders farmers has already been highlighted. This important gap in agricultural development programmes is the result of national sectoral policies, which are based upon insufficient understanding of gender differences in the agricultural sector.
Table 7 Food production per caput index for selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa, 1992 (1979-1981=100)
|
Angola |
80 |
Mali |
89 |
|
Benin |
124 |
Mauritania |
81 |
|
Botswana |
77 |
Mauritius |
108 |
|
Burkina Faso |
134 |
Mozambique |
71 |
|
Burundi |
97 |
Namibia |
71 |
|
Cameroon |
79 |
Niger |
85 |
|
Central African Republic |
94 |
Nigeria |
128 |
|
Chad |
107 |
Rwanda |
77 |
|
Congo |
79 |
Senegal |
99 |
|
Côte d'Ivoire |
93 |
Sierra Leone |
84 |
|
Ethiopia |
86 |
Somalia |
48 |
|
Gabon |
80 |
South Africa |
63 |
|
Gambia |
74 |
Sudan |
89 |
|
Ghana |
109 |
Swaziland |
83 |
|
Guinea |
102 |
Tanzania |
79 |
|
Guinea-Bissau |
109 |
Togo |
93 |
|
Kenya |
94 |
Uganda |
104 |
|
Lesotho |
57 |
Zaire |
100 |
|
Liberia |
62 |
Zambia |
78 |
|
Madagascar |
86 |
Zimbabwe |
41 |
|
Malawi |
51 |
|
|
Source: UNDP, 1995.
The situation is unlikely to change unless sufficient and relevant gender-disaggregated agricultural statistical data become available, which would contribute to a better comprehension of existing gender differences and related requirements for appropriate support to agricultural development. Furthermore, there is urgent need to rectify the important fallacy of agricultural households in Africa being based upon a single farming system controlled by men. Agricultural extension advice is not automatically shared between all household members. Agricultural credit allocated to a farming household does not benefit all its productive members and even appropriate agricultural research for men farmers is not necessarily a suitable solution for women farmers' needs.
Structural adjustment
Increasing attention has been paid to the impact of structural adjustment policies on rural women in Africa, and empirical evidence is emerging that indicates that the impact has largely been negative and, therefore, detrimental to the food security situation. Under structural adjustment programmes, large-scale farming and commercial crop production are promoted, based on the assumption that productivity improvements are easier to obtain in the export as opposed to subsistence or locally traded crops sector, and that the increase in income stemming from export will ensure national food security. As a consequence, resources (land, labour and inputs including research) have been reallocated from subsistence production to the production of export crops. The implications of this shift are many, especially for women who are concentrated in the subsistence sector and whose ability to move into export crops is limited by constraints described earlier in this chapter. Rising prices for basic food products, commodities and agricultural inputs often encourage women to remain at the subsistence level to cover more of the household food needs.
At the same time, reduced government involvement in such areas as marketing and pricing for subsistence agriculture leaves farmers responsible for areas in which they have no previous experience or training. For example, in Zimbabwe, the parastatal marketing boards no longer enjoy government financial support and subsidies have been removed. Thus marketing facilities, collection depots and assured producer-controlled prices are no longer in place and women now have to develop marketing skills, source their own markets and meet all costs.
In addition, structural adjustment policies generally involve reduced government expenditures on social services such as education, health and rural infrastructure (water and energy supplies) which means that further demands are made on women's time and energy to make up for shortfalls in these areas (FAO, 1994:3-4).
In many African countries, rural women account for 60 percent of the agricultural labour force and up to 80 percent of total food production. Not only do women outnumber men in the agricultural labour force, but they also work more hours in agriculture than men. As such, women contribute greatly to food security at household and national levels.
A number of factors are further increasing women's responsibilities to provide for the family food requirements. The family labour supply at farm level has decreased because of male outmigration to urban areas, thus creating family labour shortages particularly at peak agricultural seasons. The traditional gender-based division of labour is breaking down and farm women are increasingly undertaking tasks previously done by men. The number of households headed by women and their percentage of total rural households are increasing all over the world. This trend is most prominent in sub-Saharan Africa, with an overall 31 percent of its households headed by a woman, in comparison with Asia (9 percent), the Near East and North Africa (17 percent) and Latin America and the Caribbean (17 percent). Interregional differences vary greatly from 10 percent female-headed households in the Niger (early 1990s), to 46 percent in Botswana and 72 percent in Lesotho (late 1980s).
The effect of this has been increased malnutrition and food insecurity in the region. The loss of male labour and the inability of women heads of household to hire labour have led to adjustments in women's cropping patterns and farming systems, resulting in a decrease in production and, in some cases, to production shifts towards less nutritious crops.
Since the mid-1960s, the number of rural poor has increased and the number of poor rural women has increased more than proportionally as compared with the number of poor rural men. Evidence is emerging that the rural poor suffer from a significant gap between their potential and actual productivity, and the productivity gap of poor rural women is much wider than that of poor rural men because of an explicit gender bias in credit, land allocation, access to peasant organizations and marketing bodies and input and agricultural service delivery. Rural women will gain proportionally more if investment and development efforts are shifted in their favor.
Degradation of the environment has a greater impact on poor smallholders than on others, as the degradation of their natural resource base is significantly worsening their poverty. Land degradation creates a higher labour demand to maintain production levels. This sustains the need for high birth rates and population growth. Much of this labour demand to maintain production levels and the increased care for the family falls upon women farmers. Decreasing production, lack of fuelwood and potable water and increased labour demand may result in women having to reduce the number of hot meals per day and substantially lower family levels of nutrition, as some staple foods cannot be digested without prolonged cooking. Environmental degradation, therefore, has a direct impact on the household food security situation. Access to landownership is critical in motivating investment for conservation. Women's lack of security in landownership and tenure decreases the likelihood that they will adopt environmentally sustainable agricultural practices.
NGOs have greatly contributed to the recent upsurge in gender awareness in sub-Saharan Africa, owing, to a large extent, to their ability to influence development policies and their capacity to reach and have an impact on large sections of civil society. The NGO community contributed significantly to the success of the Fourth World Conference on Women and, in many countries, NGOs are taking a pioneering role in the follow-up to the conference. NGOs have a vital mission in Africa in supporting rural women in their development and thereby optimizing their economic contributions to food production and food security.
While the governments of developing countries are becoming more aware of the role of women in food production and food security, macroeconomic and agricultural policies and programmes in many countries have not adequately helped rural women to make use of resources. Governments' policy support must include improving rural women's access to agricultural, financial and social services such as education, health, sanitation and water supply. Moreover, women's access to land needs to be considered as the foundation of all economic activities and social development. Awareness must be fostered among policy-makers, planners, village heads and male farmers of the benefits resulting from women's access to land in terms of family and national food security. Two approaches are recommended:
· mainstreaming of gender concerns in all programmes and projects;· broad-based policy initiatives in favor of women. Women should not be seen in isolation; their roles and economic contributions have to be viewed from a perspective of the social and economic framework within which they live. Overcoming the lack of information on rural women's situation is the key to sustainable development efforts. There is, therefore, an urgent need to improve the availability of gender-disaggregated agricultural statistical data in development planning and public information programmes.
5.1 Policy, planning and research
5.2 Institutional strengthening
5.3 Direct assistance to rural women
Given the crucial contributions of women to the production and provision of food in Africa, household and national food security will only be achieved when the roles, responsibilities and needs of women farmers in the region are fully addressed at all levels.
Recommendations to address these roles, responsibilities and needs have been categorized in the following.
Development policy and planning must take into consideration the roles, responsibilities and needs of women food producers in order to ensure that development programmes directed to improving food security are successful. Agricultural research must be directed to food crops for which women are responsible and to technologies to improve women's productivity and alleviate their household and agricultural labour.
Gender-disaggregated agricultural statistical data are critical as a prerequisite for any changes in current policy, planning and research activities and for improving analytical and planning capacities for gender-relevant programmes.
Although there are sufficient data to show that, in many African countries, women account for 60 percent of the agricultural labour force and up to 80 percent of the food production, there are significant gaps in data on women's roles, responsibilities and needs in food production and provision.
Action should therefore be taken to improve the collection, availability and use of gender-disaggregated data in agriculture and rural development.
Understanding the different and complementary roles, responsibilities and needs of men and women farmers and the gender-differentiated smallholders' decision-making process regarding food production and survival strategies is also a precondition for agricultural and rural development strategy and policy formulation aimed at improving food security.
Social and economic gender awareness and sensitization training should therefore be made available to planners, policy-makers and researchers in agricultural and environmental issues, focusing on practical tools to rectify current gender biases in planning, policy-making, agricultural research and extension delivery and environmental programmes.
Awareness must also be fostered among policy-makers, planners, village heads and male farmers, of the benefits resulting from women's access to productive resources, and especially to land, in terms of family and national food security.
Governments should, therefore, not only aim at eliminating all the discriminatory legislative measures that obstruct women farmers' full contribution to economic growth and sustainable development, but should also engage themselves in public awareness campaigns on the need for women's access to productive resources, first and foremost land, in order to adjust customary laws in line with current requirements for the betterment of all.
Institutions providing education, training and other resources and services to improve the agricultural productivity of farmers must be strengthened, particularly in the provision of these services and resources to women.
Agricultural extension programmes urgently need to reorient their services to support the majority of the agricultural labour force, i.e. women farmers. In particular, agricultural training curricula and extension programmes need to be reoriented to reflect the reality of the roles of men and women farmers in the agricultural sector.
Retraining of male extension workers is therefore recommended, in order to strengthen their skills in working with women farmers. There should also be retraining of female extension workers to make their knowledge and work more relevant to the major productive activities of women farmers. Administrative, institutional and financial constraints on retraining men and women extension agents need to be investigated and eased.
An overhaul is needed of rural financing systems and adjustments should be made to national credit and financial policies, including relaxing the requirements for collateral and co-signing by a woman's husband for a loan, and allowing for alternative forms of collateral including group guarantee. Improved technology is required to increase women farmers' productivity, to decrease labour demand and drudgery and to maintain or rehabilitate soil conditions and fertility. Small-scale women farmers are creditworthy and need financial support to acquire the improved technology with which they can improve their socio-economic situation and, thus, the food security of their families.
Innovative collaborations should therefore be established between autonomous, decentralized rural financing systems and agricultural and rural development programmes, whereby the latter are responsible for providing technical assistance for increased productivity and the former are responsible for providing credit for improved inputs, based upon local savings capacities, to ensure ownership of development and a sustainable progress.
Lack of marketing opportunities is an important constraint to increased production by women food producers in particular. Credit for working capital and crop storage will aid producers to sell at high seasonal prices. Improved access to marketing groups, small-scale traders' cooperatives and expanded availability of appropriate storage in local and regional markets, market information and training in marketing, accounting and management skills are required to eliminate the existing marketing constraints that women farmers face.
Research should therefore be directed to identifying possibilities for surplus food production by subsistence farmers and marketing opportunities for non-officially priced agricultural produce. Furthermore, decision-makers in peasant organizations, marketing bodies and parastatal organizations supporting grassroots associations need to be gender-sensitized to increase their awareness of existing gender biases in marketing infrastructures. This should lead to measures correcting existing marketing imbalances and promote marketing opportunities for food and tradable crops, thereby improving food security at household and national levels.
Collaboration between governments and intergovernmental organizations with civil society organizations can strengthen the efforts of all to improve services, education and training aimed at increasing the productivity of women farmers and, hence, food security. NGOs play a pivotal role in mobilizing the rural population and specifically rural women. They often have a better understanding of the needs and opportunities of small-scale farmers. Because they function through a more informal structure, rural people find it easier to use NGOs as their representatives in negotiations with more formally organized government institutions.
The role NGOs play in supporting and representing rural populations therefore needs to be recognized. A better dialogue is needed to find out how governmental institutions can establish an enabling environment to further the impact of existing NGO collaboration with rural people and in particular rural women.
Women are the major food producers in Africa and, at the same time, development policies and programmes have not given sufficient attention to their needs to improve their food productivity without placing a disproportionate burden on them. There is a great need to strengthen women's human resource development and to support them in their quest for improvements for themselves and their families. Training programmes need to be well adapted to women's needs and have to take into account the serious time constraints women face as a result of their triple responsibilities for agricultural production, family welfare and support to their communities as a whole.
Better training opportunities need to be made available to rural women in order to:
· improve their knowledge of improved agricultural practices and crop varieties;· strengthen their leadership skills and abilities to participate better in peasant associations and decision-making processes with regard to agricultural services and inputs;
· assist them in mobilizing their demand for credit, agricultural research on improved crop varieties, appropriate technology extension support and other services relevant for the food security and well-being of themselves and their families.
NOTE
The author would like to thank Ms. Lawrencia Adams, consultant in charge of the NGO Unit, who wrote Section 2 "Overview of NGOs working for women and development in Africa" and Ms. Mirjam Schaap, Associate Professional Officer, Women in Development, who selected most of the reference material for this chapter and improved earlier drafts. Both are staff members at the FAO Regional Office in Accra.
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