TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF RESEARCH ON WOMEN FARMERS IN AFRICA: LESSONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS; WITH AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY



The use of labor from outside the household varies from
little or none to fairly high levels, but the pattern is not
necessarily a move away from cooperative labor
arrangements to hired labor. Goheen (1988) observed a
considerable increase in labor exchange among Nso
women in Cameroon since Kaberry (1968) wrote about
this group 38 years earlier. Although she notes that
cooperative groups are essential for breaking labor
bottlenecks, clearly work groups attend to some fields in a
more timely fashion than others. It is not clear whose fields
are completed in a timely fashion and whose fields are left
until last. The timing of the work parties will affect the
productivity of the plot.

Labor markets for male and female wage labor may be
highly segmented by gender (Koopman 1991; Donhauser
et al. 1994) with female agricultural wage labor generally
remunerated at much lower rates than male labor. In
Kenya, women typically hire men for traditional “men’s
tasks” and women for traditional “women’s tasks” (Pala
1983). The extent to which women work for wage labor
also varies considerably across areas. In northern Ghana,
much of the wage labor is done by women, and this
provides them with an important source of cash income
(Runge-Metzger and Diehl 1993). In other areas, women’s
domestic responsibilities limit their ability to participate in
wage labor.

The outmigration of men is only one way in which the
labor markets in other sectors of the economy affect the
labor available for agriculture. Opportunities for men and
women to earn nonfarm income vary tremendously
between regions. Wage labor in nonagricultural sectors is
relatively rare in many rural areas, but off-farm activities,
such as agricultural processing and trading, frequently
supplement household income. Okeyo (1979) claims that
90% of Luo women farmers in Kenya engage in informal
economic sector activities. In a survey paper examining
studies from across Africa, Reardon (1997) finds that
nonfarm income provides 22-93% of total rural incomes.
Relatively little work has been done on the relationship
between agricultural productivity and off-farm
opportunities, especially by gender.

It is critical to understand how agricultural production
fits into the broader rural economy in order to determine
the most appropriate ways to increase agricultural
productivity and the welfare of poor producers and
consumers. The most effective way to improve the well-
being of members of rural households may not always be
through increasing agricultural productivity.

Conclusions: Labor and Gender

The labor available to a farmer depends on the amount of
household labor that is available (and which can be
mobilized) for agriculture and by the availability of
nonfamily labor. Female-headed households may have a
harder time gaining access to labor because they have less
male labor within the household and they may have less
resources for hiring nonfamily labor. It is unclear how well
women farmers in male-headed households are able to
mobilize household, hired, or cooperative labor for
agriculture given that the labor of both men and women
may be required. Increasing opportunities for men and
women, both within the agricultural sector and in other
sectors of the economy, will affect the allocation of labor
within the household.

Access to labor may affect the adoption of technology
and the distribution of its benefits. The literature provides
information on numerous dimensions along which gender
may be important, and it suggests a number of questions
that should be considered to further understanding about
how differential access to labor by gender may affect
technology choices. A number of cautions were cited
earlier in this paper about the uses of these data,
nonetheless, the following questions remain important:
What is the division of labor, both by crop and by task?
How have these changed over time, especially in response
to changing economic opportunities? In particular, who
tends to be the primary grower of maize? To what extent is
maize grown for home consumption or for sale? Does this
vary according to whether modern varieties (MVs) or
traditional varieties are grown? Who provides the labor for
different tasks? Is there a rigid breakdown by gender? What
other activities are household members involved in? How
do seasonality, migration, and labor markets (both
agricultural and nonagricultural) affect the availability of



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