As with credit, the determinants of fertilizer use are
highly correlated with gender. Farmers with more
land and more access to cash or credit are more likely to
use fertilizer.
Access to Extension and Information
The usefulness of extension and related information
services rests on both the farmer’s access to the source of
the information and its quality and appropriateness. Access
to appropriate information may have a significant impact
on agricultural productivity. In Tanzania, Fortmann (1976)
noted that knowledge of maize recommendations
correlated with recommended maize practices. Similarly in
Kenya, the availability of extension services has a
significant effect on output, producing increases of 7.5-
18.8 % (Ongaro 1990). In 1976, however, Moock (1976)
examined farmer efficiency in Kenya and found that the
use of extension services resulted in higher yields for men
but not for women. It may be that women received
different qualitative or quantitative levels of extension
services or that information provided by extension was
more appropriate for the conditions under which men
were farming.
There is evidence that in many instances women farmers
are not reached by extension services (Baser 1988; Saito
and Weidemann 1990). For example, a study in Malawi in
the early 1980s found that few women ever had contact
with extension agents and that women’s participation in
agricultural training was limited (Hirschmann and
Vaughan 1984). The contact farmer system, in which an
innovative group of farmers who have adopted new ideas
and technologies teach other farmers, tends to exclude
women (Baser 1988). In Zambia, few women farmers were
chosen as contact farmers, and female household heads
were less likely than men to know the name of their
contact farmer or extension agent (Due et al. 1991).
Female-headed households may be especially
disadvantaged. Saito (1994) notes that female-headed
households are not served well by extension agents, who
often prefer to talk to women in male-headed households
rather than those in female-headed households. Thus, a
bias might not simply be based on gender, but also on
status and household structure. However, it is not clear
that the bias would necessarily favor women in male-
headed households.
In looking at extension services and information access,
it is difficult to disentangle the effects of gender and
income levels. In Zambia, extension reaches only 25% of
farmers, and it fails to reach the poorest farmers (Alwang
and Siegel 1994). To the extent that these are women,
extension is not reaching female farmers. Hirschmann and
Vaughan (1983) observe that the bias of extension was
against poor households, not against women in particular.
They found that those farmers who had enough land to
grow maize in pure stands (as recommended) had adequate
labor and capital, and use inputs were the most likely to
receive assistance from extension agents (Hirschmann and
Vaughan 1984). Because women are underrepresented in
this group, they are less likely to obtain assistance.
Some efforts to reach women through extension services
have been successful. In Zimbabwe, emphasis has been
placed on having extension work with groups, and indeed,
women there constitute the majority membership in such
groups (Muchena 1994). These groups provide extension
services and also make it easier for the women to gain
access to credit. Yet, women’s participation is still
constrained by a variety of practices, including the
expectation that a woman’s husband must approve any
legal transaction in which she is involved.
Sources of information outside of extension may also be
important. According to Tanzanian farmers in the 1970s,
those sources, in descending order of importance, were
private agricultural supply companies, mass media
agricultural information, an instruction book, and
extension service demonstration plots and interactions
(Fortmann 1976). In Zambia, even contact farmers did
not think that extension agents provided them with their
most useful information (Due et al. 1991). Thus, it may be
important to consider access to information in a much
broader context than just access to extension services.
No gender-based analyses of access to information from
agricultural supply companies have been conducted.
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