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



To summarize: women’s access to credit may be limited
by the perception that they produce crops for subsistence
and not for the market, by their less secure land tenure,
and by the provision of credit through organizations that
are geared toward men.

Access to Fertilizer

Farmers’ fertilizer use depends on two things: (1) whether
fertilizer is available in their area in a timely fashion and
(2) whether the farmer has the resources to purchase
fertilizer. The impact of fertilizer use on productivity also
depends on whether farmers apply it appropriately on
their fields.

Supply problems have been widely cited to explain why
farmers do not purchase and use fertilizer. Imports are
often regulated and frequently there are bottlenecks in
distribution that are attributable to poor infrastructure
(e.g., see Kumar [1991] on Zambia and Blackie [1994] on
Zimbabwe). When supplies are limited, there must be
some basis for allocating fertilizer. For instance, when
prices are controlled by the government, some form of
rationing must occur. Generally, farmers with the most
influence on the suppliers will obtain the fertilizer. Under
these circumstances, women are less likely to obtain
fertilizer. Market-oriented approaches use price to allocate
fertilizer, to the advantage of farmers with access to cash or
credit.8 Hence, women, who commonly have less access
than men to cash and credit, will again generally have a
harder time purchasing fertilizer. The increase in fertilizer
prices that occurs when subsidies are removed may further
disadvantage those without access to credit. Gladwin
(1992) emphasizes the importance of fertilizer subsidies as
a means of increasing maize production among women
farmers and increasing household food security. Using
examples from Cameroon and Malawi, she argues that
structural adjustment programs that remove fertilizer
subsidies affect female farmers more than male farmers,
because they reduce the use of fertilizer on local maize,
which is a woman’s crop.9

A second concern with fertilizer use is its effectiveness.
The impact of fertilizer use on productivity depends on
how appropriate the application procedure is for the
specific area. Kumar (1991) notes that the increased use of
fertilizer in eastern Zambia in the early 1990s had limited
impact on yields due to poor application. This highlights
several potential problems. One is that farmers may not be
aware of the recommended application procedures (this
will be covered in greater detail in the following discussion
of farmers’ access to extension services). In addition, the
recommendations may not be appropriate for a given
farmer’s fields. The absence of appropriate fertilizer
recommendations is noted as one reason for the limited
use of inorganic fertilizer by communal farmers in
Zimbabwe (Blackie 1994). Page and Chonyera (1994)
note that farmers who purchase inputs from local stores in
Zimbabwe don’t necessarily follow the product
instructions, whereas communal farmers who receive credit
to purchase fertilizer are required to use the recommended
rates. However, Page and Chonyera (1994) suggest that the
recommended rates are too high and too expensive to
make fertilizer use profitable for farmers.

It should also be recognized that fertilizer may not be
applied efficiently across all of a household’s plots. Smale
(1991) suggests that in Malawi, many farmers who fertilize
their local maize do not do so on all of their plots. This
would only be efficient if there were differential costs to
application or if farmers applied fertilizer based on soil
types. These factors, in turn, would only have a gender
effect if the costs of application differed for men and
women or if the soil types varied between men’s and
women’s plots. Another explanation for fertilizing some
household plots and not others would be that farmers, who
may only able to obtain or afford a given quantity of
fertilizer, try to maintain recommended application levels
on some of their plots, even though higher returns would
be obtained from allocating the fertilizer across all plots.
Similarly, in Burkina Faso, Udry (1996) finds that fertilizer
is not efficiently allocated across plots, even those plots
planted to the same crop. He attributes this to the control
of plots by different individuals within the household.

8 Rorbach (1989) notes that for Zimbabwe, access to credit may be more important than the price of fertilizer.

9 Smale and Heisey (1994) argue that while Gladwin’s contention may be correct, her analysis does not support her claim that female farmers are
more disadvantaged by the removal of the fertilizer subsidy than male farmers.

14



More intriguing information

1. The name is absent
2. Wirtschaftslage und Reformprozesse in Estland, Lettland, und Litauen: Bericht 2001
3. IMPROVING THE UNIVERSITY'S PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC POLICY EDUCATION
4. Outline of a new approach to the nature of mind
5. The Advantage of Cooperatives under Asymmetric Cost Information
6. Macroeconomic Interdependence in a Two-Country DSGE Model under Diverging Interest-Rate Rules
7. On Evolution of God-Seeking Mind
8. The name is absent
9. Les freins culturels à l'adoption des IFRS en Europe : une analyse du cas français
10. The name is absent
11. The name is absent
12. The name is absent
13. La mobilité de la main-d'œuvre en Europe : le rôle des caractéristiques individuelles et de l'hétérogénéité entre pays
14. IMMIGRATION POLICY AND THE AGRICULTURAL LABOR MARKET: THE EFFECT ON JOB DURATION
15. The name is absent
16. The duration of fixed exchange rate regimes
17. From Aurora Borealis to Carpathians. Searching the Road to Regional and Rural Development
18. Telecommuting and environmental policy - lessons from the Ecommute program
19. The name is absent
20. Handling the measurement error problem by means of panel data: Moment methods applied on firm data