in many places, local varieties tended to be considered
“women’s crops” and high-yielding varieties tended to be
“men’s crops.”1 This implies that not only the crop, but the
variety of a given crop, may vary by gender. To the extent
that high-yielding varieties are a cash crop and local
varieties are a food crop, they may continue to fit into this
pattern. However, as high-yielding varieties that meet the
consumption preferences of smallholder farmers are
developed, the distinctions between subsistence and cash
varieties may become blurred. Recent evidence from
Malawi suggests that both hybrid maize and local maize
can be viewed as either a subsistence or a cash crop,
depending on the farmer’s circumstances (Smale and
Heisey 1994a). As markets based on food for local
consumption develop, the definitions of cash versus
subsistence crops become less clear. Currently, women
frequently are involved in marketing crops for
consumption by urban markets (Guyer 1980; von Braun
and Webb 1989).
It is important to define what is meant by a crop being a
man’s or a woman’s crop. Cropping involves numerous
stages, each involving a variety of decisions and the use of
inputs. Frequently, calling a crop a man’s or a woman’s
refers to the gender of the farmer who controls the output.
This may not be the only distinction, however, for the
purpose of understanding technology adoption. It is also
important to consider who makes the decisions about
which crops to grow, on which plots of land, and what
inputs, including labor, to use. Decisions about labor
inputs include whose labor will be used and whether to use
outside labor. Different people may be involved with any
given crop.
Although there may be some cases in which the adoption
of a crop variety is conditioned by traditional notions of
appropriate crops for men and women, there is increasing
evidence that these norms change as economic
circumstances shift. Thus, we would expect to see women
adopting modern varieties of maize when it is appropriate
for them to do so. As the modern varieties incorporate
more of the desired characteristics for home consumption,
we would expect to see them being grown for subsistence
as well as cash.
Division by task
In most parts of the world, men and women tend to work
at different tasks. Numerous time allocation studies have
examined the issue of which household members perform
which farm tasks (McSweeney 1979; Pala 1983;
Hirschmann and Vaughan 1984; Saito 1994). These
studies often identify some tasks as men’s tasks and some as
women’s tasks. For example, in Kenya, women reported
that men were responsible for building the granary, while
women were clearly responsible for hand digging,
harvesting, and transporting the crops (Pala 1983).
However, though tasks may be viewed as women’s or men’s,
in practice, the divisions are blurred with both men and
women involved in many tasks. Relatively few tasks are
done only by men or only by women.
Many studies examining time allocation across
agricultural and nonagricultural tasks find that women
work more hours than men (Saito 1994).2 Time allocation
by gender can be determined in two ways. One is by asking
household members about their contributions to each task.
The other approach is through observation, in which the
time allocation of individual household members is
recorded by an outside observer—obviously a much more
time-intensive and costly process. In a time-allocation
study in Burkina Faso, data on rural women’s time use
obtained using the two techniques were compared. Some
44% of women’s work was unaccounted for using recall
(McSweeney 1979). Similar comparisons for men were not
made, so it is not clear how the bias affects the relative
amounts of work attributed to women and men.
Labor inputs may also be affected by farm size and other
farm characteristics. In Zambia, as farm size increases,
women (on a per capita basis) allocate more labor to both
household maintenance and agriculture, while men work
slightly less in agriculture and much less in nonagricultural
activities (Kumar 1991).
1 For example, Gladwin (1992) suggests that local varieties of maize in Malawi are primarily women’s crops while cash crops and export crops, such
as tobacco and hybrid maize, are men’s crops. In Zambia, local maize is often considered a woman’s crop (Alwang and Siegel 1994).
2 Saito finds that women work more hours than men in agriculture in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Zambia, and Nigeria.