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

Ferguson, A.E. 1994. Gendered science: A critique of
agricultural development. American Anthropologist 96:
540-52.

Using a case-study from Malawi, Ferguson argues that
science itself is a gendered enterprise. The case study focuses
on an interdisciplinary collaborative agricultural research
project aimed at improving bean production. Researchers
interviewed male farmers and decided that the differences in
varieties found within fields were caused by environmental
and biological factors rather than by human selection. The
farmers interviewed did not seem to know much about the
different varieties. Subsequent research showed that beans
are typically a women’s crop and that women farmers possess
intricate knowledge and preferences for the different
varieties of beans grown. Variation in the extent of
knowledge that women farmers possessed was the result of
economic factors; better-off women possessed more
knowledge and grew more varieties of beans on their plots.
These insights were incorporated into a more appropriate
crop improvement strategy. In this case study, the gender
assumptions of the agricultural researchers influenced the
conduct of their science. By documenting the differences in
knowledge and goals of male and female farmers, and
between female farmers, this case study demonstrates that
recognizing the diversity of perspectives of researchers and of
farmers is essential to agricultural research programs. While
this article does not mention maize, the theory of gendered
science provides insights into farming systems in Africa that
are relevant to programs for any crop.

Fortmann, L. 1976. Women and Maize Production: Some
Tanzanian Observations. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania:
Protein Calorie Advisory Group of the United Nations.
Mimeo.

This is an early paper that poses the issues and sets out a
research agenda on gender and maize. Maize has long been
considered a woman’s crop in Tanzania. In 1975, the
National Maize Project offered maize inputs to farmers at
subsidized prices. While women did not purchase the inputs
as much as men, those women who purchased the inputs
performed as well as their male counterparts. Participants
and nonparticipants differed significantly in their maize
production knowledge. Women nonparticipants had
significantly lower knowledge than male nonparticipants.
Although the information system may have been generally
ineffective, women had less access to extension contact and
published material (due to the higher incidence of illiteracy
among women). Several possible explanations of women’s
low participation are explored. Whether a woman owns the
land she farms is significantly related to input use. Access to
credit and inputs, and lack of control of produce were
offered as possible explanations, but no data are available to
quantify these hypotheses.

Fortmann, L. 1980. Women’s Involvement in High Risk
Arable Agriculture: The Botswana Case. Washington,
D.C.: Office of Women in Development, USAID.

While Botswana is ideally suited for cattle production,
arable agriculture remains an important, but risky, activity.
Women farmers, in particular, are marginalized because of
their lack of access to draft power and to labor. Female-
headed households often must hire labor and animal
traction to plow their fields while male-headed households
can exchange surplus labor or use their own stock. In
addition, women have higher household cash outlays and
typically are asset poor compared to men. Although arable
agriculture is rarely profitable for either male- or female-
headed households, there are reasons for wanting to keep
women in agriculture. In this matrilineal society, land is the
one asset that women farmers universally possess. As
population pressure increases and competition for land
increases between farmers and cattle raisers, this land may
become more valuable. In the meantime, policies could be
implemented to ease the burden of women farmers and
mitigate their input constraints. Possibly, policies could steer
women towards crops that minimize draft and labor, such as
maize, or that lessen women’s other time-consuming tasks,
such as fetching water.

Francis, E., and J. Hoddinott. 1993. Migration and
differentiation in Western Kenya: A tale of two sub-
locations. The Journal of Development Studies 30(1):
115-45.

Two micro studies examine how rural/urban relationships
have influenced economic and social mobility. In the 1950s,
increased urban employment opportunities in Kenya
encouraged rural-to-urban migration. Men migrated to the
cities and sent remittances to their families in rural areas.
Today, the main sources of income for rural families are
remittances and nonagricultural rural employment rather
than agricultural output. Many migrants are reluctant to
invest in agriculture because they believe it is less productive
than investments in urban real estate, small business
ventures, and children’s education. This low level of
investment, the loss of labor to urban centers, and the
decreased productivity of land, has not been compensated
for by widespread adoption of agricultural technology.
Successful migrants are increasingly focused on urban
markets; their ties and feelings of responsibility for rural
areas are weakening. To the extent that opportunities for
agricultural production and investment are determined by
family income, this trend in urban-to-rural migration may
have serious repercussions for rural farmers’ ability to invest
in productivity-enhancing technology. Seventy-one percent
of farmers grow local maize varieties and 63% grow hybrid
maize. Since maize is the staple crop, understanding the
changing constraints imposed by the rural/urban
relationship will therefore be crucial to any maize-related
development project.

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