on gender or on other factors that may be highly correlated
with gender, such as size of landholdings. In this section, I
will briefly discuss how gender may interact with each
specific input and the broader gender issues surrounding
access to inputs.
Access to Credit
Credit is often a prerequisite for the adoption of improved
seeds, especially hybrids, and fertilizer. Although farmers
may use income from off-farm activities to purchase these
inputs, they still may require credit at certain times of the
year. Credit may be tied to the purchase of a particular
input, such as seeds or fertilizer, or it may be in the form
of general agricultural loans. Numerous government
programs for providing credit have been tried in Africa,
but most have proven unsuccessful and have been
discontinued. The challenge for credit programs is to
provide credit that is appropriate for the client farmers and
sustainable over the long term.
As mentioned earlier, a farmer’s ability to obtain credit
may be correlated with access or tenure to land. In places
where some land is titled, it may be difficult for a farmer
whose land is not titled to obtain credit, a common
circumstance for many smallholders. But access to credit
may not be based solely on legal rights. Credit may be tied
to the lender’s perception of the farmers’ ability to repay
the loan. Thus, large-scale farmers who produce a surplus
for sale may have better access to credit than small-scale
farmers, regardless of their tenure status. In Zimbabwe, the
extension of credit to smallholders is cited as one reason
for the successful expansion of smallholder maize
production. However, to receive credit, farmers had to
document their ability to produce a marketable surplus,
usually by showing receipts from past sales. The farmers
who subsequently obtained credit were from high-rainfall
zones and had above-average farm resources (Rohrbach
1989). To the extent that women are perceived as
producing more for home consumption and less for the
market, they may have a harder time obtaining credit
when this criteria is employed.
Another factor that may affect access to credit is a
farmers’ affiliation with an agricultural organization.
Credit may be provided through a variety of sources,
notably cooperatives, farmer’s associations, and input
suppliers. If women are excluded from these organizations,
either officially or de facto, and access to credit is tied to
membership, women may be disadvantaged simply because
of their gender. Moreover, these organizations often
provide more than credit; they also frequently provide
extension information. Through their exclusion, women
may be doubly disadvantaged.
Where women have less access to credit, informal savings
organizations may provide an alternative route to
mobilizing funds for agricultural inputs, e.g., rotating
savings and credit programs (ROSCAs). These funds,
however, are not necessarily used for agricultural inputs.
Savings clubs may be another means of obtaining capital to
purchase agricultural inputs. In Zimbabwe, most savings
club members are women. These clubs do not have funds
to lend, but they provide a means for women to mobilize
savings. In Lesotho, women—especially the poorest
women—frequently form self-help groups, but these
informal groups are not officially recognized and thus they
cannot provide their members with access to credit or
official government assistance. Instead, women are
encouraged to join formal mixed-gender organizations, but
they often lack the land that is a prerequisite for
participation in those groups (Safilios-Rothschild 1985).
Credit programs designed for women and individuals
without access to collateral have been tried in other parts
of the world; the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh is an oft-
cited example. The Grameen Bank makes use of women’s
social capital by using a group lending approach. Groups
of five women are granted credit, but no group member is
eligible for additional credit if any fellow member is in
arrears. Farmers’ clubs in Malawi also attempt to use
relationships among individuals as a form of collateral.
However, farmers who are perceived as being the highest
risk by other farmers are not included in the clubs
(Chipande 1987; Jones et al. 1996). Hence, these types of
credit programs may not reach the poorest segment of the
population. The extent and impact of gender bias in these
programs is unclear.
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