African Women In Agriculture

This book examines gender relations to land relations that are crucial to formulating policies through which African women's food producing capabilities can be advanced. It addresses the need to document historical changes in land tenure practices that have influenced women's household production.

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This paper reviews the major aspects of African women's contribution to food and cash crop production and offers some suggestions to improve their participation in intensification in the smallholder sector. An examination of the sexual division of labor shows that so-called "traditional" patterns have given way to expediency with women involved in all aspects of production either routinely or when male labor is unavailable due to a change in marital status or to out-migration. The semi-autonomous nature of women within the household and the diverse types of households are detailed in order to show the diverse responsibilities of men and women for the procurement of food and other commodities. Although some women earn a good living from agriculture and can assure family food security and/or generate surplus sales, most women tend to be among the lower resource farmers. This is not because they are deficient in farming skills, but because they lack access to labor, land, credit, training, and mechanization, especially in years of agricultural intensification. Stereotypes about women's place often prevent planners and implementors of development projects from incorporating women into plans and programs. Furthermore, agricultural intensification may increase the time women have to spend in farming without providing adequate remuneration. In order to include women in agricultural intensification, certain solutions are given such as disaggregating data by gender, recognizing intrahoushold dynamics in farming research and extension, studying farming roles, reorienting training and extension programs, mainstreaming income generation projects, intensifying capitalization schemes, and researching the farming enterprises associated with women.

Extrait de la couverture : "The phenomenon of globalization has influenced the African social and cultural landscape in a variety of ways. Yet its effect on women's lives has not figured prominently in the scholarship on Africa. ... In this volume, scholars deconstruct important issues and provide perspectives on understanding and transforming women's experiences in Africa. ... Some of the issues highlighted include the education of girls in Kenya, women's role in agriculture and crop production in Africa, women as culture mediators in music, the participation of women in sports, conservation of biodiversity and women in resource management in East Africa, and the informal sector as a survival strategy in Nigeria."

The agricultural and rural crisis besetting Africa is the result of both policy failures and inadequacies and the product of structural rigidities inhibiting access to and control of vital resources. The challenge of leadership in the agricultural sector is how to design and implement policies which would help induce growth and development in this sector. It is against this background that the Africa Leadership Forum convened in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria in July of 1989 to explore a broad range of parameters to be addressed in the formulation of successful policies. This volume is derived from papers submitted and presentations made. The book provides the main conclusions and recommendations which emanated from the conference. They highlight a series of actions which must be taken in such areas as women in agriculture, small-scale farmers, agribusiness, subsidies, human capital, and linkages between international and national research anbd energy. Other topics include - Africa's security situation; social and economic factors, ecology, and social engineering; dietary patterns in Africa; pest management; agricultural practice; and international organizations. It is aimed at economists, anthropologists, ecologists, agriculturalists, social and political scientists, and all those interested or involved in agricultural production in Africa and other underdeveloped countries.

In Africa women farmers are generally responsible for pest management activities. Research has shown that the technological needs and priorities of women farmers differ from those of men, but their specific needs are rarely addressed in the research and development of agricultural technology. Women's access to new technologies is seriously undermined owing to the failure of extension systems to establish contacts with women farmers. The book discusses the gender-related, socio-economic factors that influence the creation, adoption and effective implementation of IPM technologies.

The book is more interesting learning tool for undergraduate and postgraduate students focusing on women in agriculture course. The major task has been to be selective to include pertinent new materials to emphasize women work in agriculture and allied sectors. Among these are encounter in investigating different aspects related to women, gender concepts, status of women, issues and challenges of women in agriculture, role, responsibilities, access and control over productive resources, program for women in agriculture, extension needs and preferences of women in agriculture, women-friendly agricultural technologies, gender-related data and information sources, etc. With these innovations and systematic understanding, I hope students find this book illuminating since I found this as rewarding and enriching.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Agriculture, Diversification, and Gender in Rural Africa uses a longitudinal cross-country comparative approach to contribute to the understanding of smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. Relying on unique household level data collected in six African countries since 2002, it addresses the dynamics of intensification and diversification within and outside agriculture in contexts where women have much poorer access to agrarian resources than men. Despite a growing interest in smallholder agriculture in Africa, this interest has not been matched by the research on the subject. While recent policies focus on reducing poverty through encouraging smallholder agriculture, there are few studies showing how livelihoods have changed since this time, and especially how such changes may have affected male and female headed households differently. Moreover, agriculture is often viewed in isolation from other types of income generating opportunities, like small scale trading. Agriculture, Diversification, and Gender in Rural Africa looks at how livelihoods have changed over time and how this has affected the relationship between agricultural and non-agricultural sources of livelihoods. In general, women have much poorer access to agricultural sources of income, and for this reason the interplay between farm and non-farm sources of income is especially important to analyse. Providing suggestions for more inclusive policies related to rural development, this edited volume outlines current weaknesses and illustrates potential opportunities for change. It offers a nuanced alternative to the current dominance of structural transformation narratives of agricultural change through adding insights from gender studies as well as village-level studies of agrarian development. It positions change in relation to broader livelihood dynamics outside the farm sector and contextualises them nationally and regionally to provide a necessary analytical adaption to the unfolding empirical realities of rural Africa.

This book seeks to answer the question of how much urban agriculture helps feed and support people living in towns and cities with evidence and proposals based on studies in Eastern and Central Africa.