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



Olmstead, J. Farmer’s wife, weaver’s wife: Women and work
in two Southern Ethiopian communities.
African Studies
Review
18(3): 85-98.

This article compares the economic status of women in two
communities in the Gamu Highlands of Southern Ethiopia.
Dita, predominately a farming community, has little contact
with neighboring markets. In contrast, Dorze is a weaving
community from which men often migrate to sell their
goods in more favorable urban markets. The division of
labor by sex is more rigid in the weaving community than
the farming community. Some agricultural tasks are shared
by men and women, but weaving is exclusively a male
activity. Despite this inflexibility, women in Dorze have a
higher standard of living than those in Dita. In Dorze,
women are free to pursue entrepreneurial activities and
engage in production for use value, exchange value, or trade.
In Dita, by contrast, women are limited to subsistence
activities and produce for use value alone, while men engage
in trading. In both communities, men wield significantly
more economic power than women. The sexual division of
labor is less important as an indicator of well-being than the
ability of women to earn cash incomes.

Ongaro, W.A. 1990. Modern maize technology, yield
variations and efficiency differentials: A case of small
farms in Western Kenya.
Eastern Africa Economic Review
6(1): 11-30.

This article examines the results from a 1983/84 field study
in the Kisii and Nandi districts of western Kenya and
evaluates the factors that influence maize yield variations and
efficiency differentials among small-scale farmers. The Kisii
and Nandi districts are maize surplus areas that are targeted
for extension services. Access to credit, extension contact,
and, in some cases, off-farm work all have a positive and
significant effect on maize production. Marginal revenue
products for fertilizer are calculated to be twice the input
price, implying that nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers are
underutilized. While the cost of new maize seed may be
minimal, the cost of complementary inputs such as fertilizer
may be prohibitive. The author calls for policies that grant
credit for inputs and security if crops fail due to adverse
weather. This could increase fertilizer use and increase
productivity substantially. Significant differences were found
in the way male-headed farms and female-headed farms
allocate their resources in maize production.

Page, S.L., and P. Chonyera. 1994. The promotion of maize
fertilizer packages: A cause of household food insecurity
and peasant impoverishment in high rainfall areas of
Zimbabwe.
Development Southern Africa 11(3): 301-20.

This article examines how following recommended practices
for maize production affects food security and the household
economy. A survey of farmers and extension workers in four
of Zimbabwe’s communal areas revealed that only one-third
of communal farmers had applied fertilizer at the officially
recommended rate to their 1990/91 maize crop. Often these
farmers obtained their inputs on credit. The majority of
farmers had deviated from recommended practices by
substituting manure for part or all of the recommended
fertilizer application. In three of the four areas studied, this
practice improved the chances of recovering input costs and
achieving maize self-sufficiency. This article points to the need
for less costly maize farming packages and for the integrated
use of manure. Although the article notes that most of the
farmers interviewed were women, no further discussion of
gender is included.

Pala, A.O. 1983. Women’s access to land and their role in
agriculture and decision-making on the farm: Experiences
of the Joluo of Kenya.
Journal of Eastern African Research
and Development
13: 69-85.

Women in the Luo society of Kenya have traditionally been
assured usufructuary rights to cultivation plots through the
male patrilineage. Men have held allocation rights while
women have been responsible for making production
decisions. Land tenure changes threaten to erode women’s
control over “their land” and their ability to provide food for
themselves and their children. Presently, 95% of Luo women
engage in subsistence agriculture for home consumption.
They may also engage in agriculture to raise cash to finance
household purchases. Since women have traditionally made
production decisions, significant changes in their access to
land could alter the production patterns of maize and hybrid
maize adoption constraints. The nature of these changes
would depend upon the preferences of the new decision-
makers, who would probably be men. It is unclear how
women’s access to land will be protected now that their land
can be sold without their consent.

Panin, A. 1988. Hoe and Bullock Farming Systems in
Northern Ghana: A Comparative Socio-Economic Analysis.
Nyankpala Agricultural Research Report 1. Tamale,
Ghana: Nyankpala Agricultural Experiment Station.

This study examines the effects of adopting bullock farming
systems in northern Ghana, where maize is a major crop.
Bullock farmers are generally better equipped with land,
family labor capacity, and livestock than are hoe farmers.
Adoption of bullock technology generally leads to an increase
in area of land cultivated, higher crop yields, higher disposable
income and production costs, and some shift from food crops
to cash crops. Labor input patterns are very different for hoe
and bullock farm households. Male and female children and
adult women spend less time in farm work on bullock farms
than on hoe farms, but the labor requirements for adult men
and elderly men and women are higher on bullock farms than
on hoe farms. This study suggests that bullock farming allows
for significant yield and net income increases while decreasing
the labor burden of adult women by improving factor
productivity. Since cash and credit constraints limit the
adoption of bullock technology, this study calls for an
increased government subsidy to realize these potential yield
increases.

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