Anna Ingwersen

In Africa, women account for 60-90% of the workforce in Agriculture, producing around two thirds of the food on the continent. 62% of women work in the agricultural field. Due to male urbanization in Africa within the last years, women are left on the family farms to do paid or unpaid labour on the family farm. Still, women are struggling with the gender gap in land ownership rights, access to productive, natural and economic resources which has consequences in yields and farm’s resilience to climate change.

“Improving women’s access, ownership, and control over land can potentially contribute to increased investments in and productivity of land, thus improving food security, nutrition and health at household and community levels.” [United Nations Development Programme, 2012]

Farming in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
In Africa 75% of crops are grown on smallholder farmers. On Average, the farmers cultivate 1-3 ha of land. Access to modern technologies is limited due to geography and financial resources in rural areas. According to the World Bank, three quarters of the poor population lives in said rural areas. Here, food security is at risk and agricultural growth would be necessary in order to reduce poverty and hunger. Since there are way more women working in agriculture than men, it is them who shoulder the responsibility for food security. And not only is it their responsibility, they also tend to achieve bigger improvements in children’s nutrition and health than men, if they are in the position to do so. Men who are working in agriculture often produce cash crops, which are then exported. As mentioned before, women predominantly work in agriculture compared to men. By 2050, 56% of the African population is expected to live in urban areas. Since women have a 15% higher rate of illiteracy than men, they have less diverse job opportunities and are therefore less likely to move to urban areas. The women stay on the family farm doing paid or unpaid family labour. If women don’t gain better access to education, this gender gap will increase. [FAO, 2018] [farmingfirst.org]

Where can we observe substantial differences for men and women in agriculture?

Access to land
There are several aspects to consider when it comes to access to land. A lot of women farm on the land of their husband’s lineage group with only usufruct and no ownership. Only about 20% of agricultural holders in Sub-Saharan Africa are women. And if women do own land, it is often smaller or less fertile. [farmingfirst] [Ogunlela, 2009] Politics play a big role in land rights, too. For example, in the land reform programmes in Nigeria 2009, land rights have been almost exclusively transferred to men. But not only Nigeria shows such tendency, in about a third of developing countries, tenure inheritance law differs significantly for men and women, strongly disfavouring women. Also, if tenure rights aren’t secure it is more difficult to get agricultural loans or credit. [Huyer, 2016]Access to credit, extension services and technology
In most Sub-Saharan countries, the gap between male and female-headed households who have access to agricultural loans is between 5-10%. Only 5% of agricultural extension services is received by women. As a result, women have way less access to modern technologies which could improve yields and lead to less working hours. And this shows for example in the use of organic and inorganic fertilizer, mechanical equipment and large livestock ownership for female-headed households. As mentioned before, credit isn’t available if the agricultural holdings aren’t secure. [FAO, 2018]

Politics and decision making on the farm
A study conducted in Nigeria shows that women make hardly any decisions on the farm. Most women aren’t even consulted for the purchase & sale of farmland, time of weeding, choice of crops, land preparation, etc. [Yemisi, 2009] But the FAO states, that women’s participation in decision making has increased by 17% up to 30%. [FAO, 2018] Also in politics, international and continental agricultural policy frameworks and school enrolment, positive trends are observed.

Impact on yields
Different access to resources results in a yield gap of 20-30% between male and female farmers. Additionally, there is a tremendous food loss before consumption. [FAO, 2009] 120-170kg/year/capita of food are wasted before consumption. About 40% of these losses occur at stages of food processing which are dominated by women. [Habtezion, 2012] These losses are both due to lack of technology, education and equipment. The numbers show an unnecessary loss of productivity and could much rather be a huge opportunity to achieve several Sustainability Development Goals at once.

 “If women farmers were given the same access to resources (such as finance) as men, women’s agricultural yields could increase by 20 percent to 30 percent; national agricultural production could rise by 2.5 percent to 4 percent; the number of malnourished people could be reduced by 12 to 17 percent.” [FAO, 2011]

Sub-Saharan Africa – Susceptibility to climate change in farming
With climate change advancing, we are about to face new challenges in the future. Considering the upcoming changes, agriculture is one of the most vulnerable working fields. We are facing temperature changes, extreme weather events heaping up, rainfall pattern changes, disease and pest outbreaks and degradation of land and water resources. These changes will result in more crop failures and scarcity of resources. For women, these changes will be especially hard to adapt to. Adapting to changing climate requires amongst other things the introduction of transformative agricultural practices such as agroforestry, improved soil and water management, stress-tolerant seeds and seedlings and animal breeds, small-scale irrigation etc. [Kristjanson, 2017] Adapting in terms of new practices requires education, resource, labour, mobility, information and political assistance. Lower access to assets to adapt and mitigate to climate change are fatal. With women producing two thirds of the food in Africa, food security is at risk. I have established the limited access to land, credit, extension services technology and political influence for women in agriculture. Therefore, we see that with a gender gap in agricultural frameworks there will be a gender gap in terms of resilience to climate change, too. Looking at the needed changes on the farm for adapting to a changing climate, it becomes evident, that women farmers will be more vulnerable to the upcoming changing climate events.

What can be done to mainstream gender in order to narrow the gender gap in agriculture?
In the following I will only discuss two approaches which seem most significant to me personally.

Grasping at Women’s land rights
The first approach starts with the analysis of women’s land rights (WLR) and their connection to poverty. In visual 1 it is evident, that all the mentioned aspects are connected and that changing one variable would significantly change the whole chain of connections towards poverty. Secure land rights allow the holder to access credit. If women are therefore financially stabilised, they can access modern technology, extension services, etc. and become more resilient to shocks, especially those caused by changing climate. Unfortunately, there are no papers about the effect on implementing clear and secure WLRs yet. Nonetheless we can make assumptions based on the data mentioned above, provided by the World Bank, United Nations, FAO etc. [Meinzen-Dick, 2019]

Figure 12.1 – 1 Meinzen-Dick, 2019

Women’s Empowerment
This second approach is more holistic than the first one. It defines Women’s empowerment as a fulfilment of several “empowerment indicators” to a certain degree. These indicators concern women’s ability to take part in decision making, having asset ownership, access to and decisions on credit, control over use of income, being part of formal or informal group and their workload (spending less than 10.5 hours on paid and unpaid work during the day). The study presenting the empowerment strategy shows, that not only poverty and hunger can be reduced but also agricultural productivity can significantly be increased. It also shows that the most significant factor is women’s participation in decision-making on agricultural production. [Diiro, 2018]

Conclusion
Closing the gender gap in Sub-Saharan Africa would have strongly beneficial impacts. It is a connective example on how a lot of Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) are intertwined and how in addressing what seems to be one problem, addressing several. Closing the gender gap in agriculture in SSA is addressing SDG 1 “No poverty”, SDG 2 ”No Hunger”, SDG 4 “Quality Education”, SDG 5 ”Gender Equality”, SDG 8 “ Good Jobs and Economic Growth”, SDG 9 “Innovation and Infrastructure” and SDG 10 “Reduced Inequalities”. Furthermore, I think it is inevitable to face these issues when facing a changing climate in order to achieve food security and nutritional health.

References:

[1] Ogunlela, Yemisi I., and Aisha A. Mukhtar. “Gender issues in agriculture and rural development in Nigeria: The role of women.” Humanity & social sciences Journal 4.1 (2009): 19-30.

[2] Habtezion, Senay. ”Gender, climate change and food security” United Nations Development Programme (2012): 1-6.

[3] FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations).  ”Empowering Africa’s Women for Zero Hunger and Shared Prosperity” (2018): 1-28.

[4] Kristjanson, Patricia, et al. “Addressing gender in agricultural research for development in the face of a changing climate: where are we and where should we be going?” International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability (2017): 482-500.

[5] Sophia Huyer. “Closing the Gender Gap in Agriculture, Gender, Technology and Development”, 20:2 (2016), 105-116.

[6] Meinzen-Dick, Ruth et al. ”Women’s land rights as a pathway to poverty reduction: Framework and review of available evidence” Agricultural Systems 172 (2019): 72-82.

[8] Diiro, Gracious M et al. ”Women’s empowerment in agriculture and agricultural productivity: Evidence from rural maize farmer households in western Kenya” Plos one 13 (2018): Article.

[9] https://farmingfirst.org/women_infographic/, Abgerufen am 26.3.2020

[10] https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/special-edition-agriculture-2014/gendering-agriculture, Abgerufen am 26.3.2020