Women in Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa
By Marieme Lo
Content
The role
of women in agriculture
Obstacles to women’s
empowerment
Women’s empowerment strategies
Introduction
Women’s role in agriculture and food security is critical in sub-Saharan Africa. However many researches point out the lack of visibility of their participation, and contribution in agriculture and development in general. The impediments to women's empowerment encompass their lack of access to decision making processes, their low participation in local governance, as well as their limited access to technology inputs and credit. Land tenure is another stumbling block to women’s full access and control of land and the agricultural output. Although many projects endeavor to address rural women’s needs, their empowerment should go beyond the efficiency, functionalist approach that only value their productive and reproductive roles. It is a matter of equity to empower women in a key sector where they are the major contributors to household, community subsistence and food security.
The
role of women in agriculture 
In Sub-Saharan Africa, studies
have shown that women play a crucial role in many aspects of crop
production. The gender decision of
labor is clearly defined according to cash or subsistence agriculture. While
men are often responsible for land clearing, burning and ploughing, women
specialize in weeding, transplanting, post-harvest work and, in some areas,
land preparation. Both take part in seeding and harvesting.
The division of labor and male farming system in shifting cultivation confine
women to subsistence food production, and men to cash crop cultivation, which
contributes to the economic disempowerment of women. Moreover, Sahelian women in particular play a major role in
household animal-production enterprises.
They tend to have the primary responsibility for the husbandry of small
animals and ruminants, they also take care of large animal systems - herding,
providing water and feed, cleaning stalls and milking. In all types of animal production systems,
women have a predominant role in processing, particularly of milk products, and
are commonly responsible for marketing.
In the Sahel is a zone of contrast, women assume different roles in the food production often as staple crops traders in the market. In peri-urban areas, women control the market especially the vegetable market and contribute significantly to the informal sector, the booming and most vibrant economic sector. More access to economic power and resources provide women with income and the fall back position and bargaining power in the household, especially when women are the shock bearers of whole communities in situation of crisis.
A FAO report confirms that in Sub- Saharan countries women provide:
“ 70% of the agricultural workers
60-80% of the labor to produce food for household consumption and sale
100% of the processing for basic foodstuffs
90% of household water and fuel wood
80% of food storage and transport from farm to village
90% of the hoeing and weeding work
60% of the harvesting and marketing activities”[1]
Disaggregated data on the gender division of labor confirms men and women different role in food and cash crop production. It also reveals men and women differential managerial and financial control over production, storage, marketing of agricultural products, as well as their unequal access to land, credit, and productivity enhancing inputs. The data selection and interpretation if not informed by gender awareness does little justice to women’s critical contribution in agriculture subsistence, especially when “ subsistence production does not represent a large share of GDP in monetary terms.” [2]
Obstacles to women’s empowerment
Despite their role as the backbone of food production and provision for family consumption in the Sahel, women have limited access to critical resources, inputs and support services. Their access is even more limited due to cultural, traditional and sociological factors and the gender division of labor that confine women to subsistence, food crop cultivation, and men to cash crop production.
Another instance to understand rural women predicaments is the household, not only as a unit of conflict, subordination and negotiation, but also a manifestation of the deep seated inequality, that is embedded in and interpreted as culturally determined within a set of socially constructed roles, rights and acceptance. “ Households/families are recognizably constituted of multiple actors, with varying (often conflicting) preferences and interests, and differential abilities to pursue and realize those interests. They are arenas of (albeit not the determinants of) consumption, production and investment, within which both labor and resource allocation are made.”[3]
Women have little access to the benefits of research and innovation, especially in the domain of food crops, which - in spite of ensuring food security at the household and community level - have a low priority in crop improvement research. Beyond their demographic representation they constitute an important constituency for research.
A World Bank report on “Rural Women in the Sahel and their Access to Agricultural Extension Sector Study assessed the impact of the extension program on women in five countries. Using surveys, interviews and country reports they made inferences that “women's access to technological inputs such as improved seeds, fertilisers and pesticides is limited. Their findings pinpoint that “women are not frequently reached by extension services and are rarely members of co-operatives, which often distribute government subsidized inputs to small farmers.”
Their analysis pinpoints also some of the impediments to
productivity among which the lack of access to appropriate technology: “women's
low labor productivity arises from, among other things, difficulties in
obtaining the water and fuel necessary for many value-adding an income-generating
activities, and from the lack of appropriate and affordable tools, equipment
and technologies to save labor and conserve produce.”
Women’s
empowerment strategies
The data selection and interpretation if not informed by gender awareness or gender analysis does little justice to women’s critical contribution in agriculture subsistence especially when “subsistence production does not represent a large share of GDP in monetary terms.” [4]
Rural appraisal and participatory needs’ assessment and issue mapping should take into women representation and bear in mind potential gender biases to have a true picture of the existing condition and context of rural settings. A real effort of excavation should be done in research and project implementation to identify and address women’s gendered needs.
Women have little access to the benefits of research and innovation, especially in the domain of food crops, which - in spite of ensuring food security at the household and community level - have a low priority in crop improvement research. Beyond their demographic representation, they constitute an important constituency for research but yet have not been reached extensively by the research output to improve their conditions.
Research for appropriate technologies, micro credit, market should be tailored to and take into account their specific needs. Women farming system and needs are often ignored when devising technology intervention strategies. Although gender mainstreaming and analysis have made significant headway in project design and implementation, gender mainstreaming still remains a concept.
Strategies
to address the impediments to women’s
empowerment at the societal and economic levels should go beyond the welfare,
poverty alleviation, efficiency model, and the WID and GAD theory laden
debates. Power of decision and choice of alternatives should be entrusted in
rural women’s hands to make the decisions regarding their self-fulfilment and
realisation, within their complex socio-cultural environment and
determinants.
Favorite
links
http://www.fao.org/sd/default.htm
http://www.fao.org/wfs/resource/english/arc96-4.htm
http://www.worldbank.org/afr/findings/english/find51.htm
http://www.fao.org/sd/fsdirect/fbdirect/fsp001.htm
http://www.thp.org/prize/99/prospectus.html
http://www.web.apc.org/~econews/
http://www.fao.org/sd/fsdirect/fbdirect/fsp001.htm
http://www.unifem.undp.org/s&tech6.htm
http://genderstats.worldbank.org/menu.asp
http://www.worldbank.org/gender/know/researchcover.htm
http://www.unifem.undp.org/s&tech6.htm
http://www.worldbank.org/gender/know/projc.htm
http://www.worldbank.org/gender/tensteps.htm
http://www.sidint.org/publications/development/vol41/no4/41-4f.htm
http://www.worldbank.org/gender/know/checkag.htm
http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/SUSTDEV/WPdirect/WPan0002.htm
http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/essd/essd.nsf/gender/home
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Last revised: Date (4/17/00)
Contact:
Marieme Lo
E-mail
address: 
mailto:ML242@cornell.edu