Readings, Week 12

Gladwin, Christina H. (1996), “Gender in Research Design: Old Debates and New Issues,” in Steven A. Breth (ed) Proceedings of the Workshop “Developing African Agriculture: Achieving Greater Impact from Research Investments in Africa”, SAA/Global 2000/CASIN, held in Addis Ababa, September 26-30, 1995, Sasakawa Africa Association, Mexico City, pp. 127-149. Gladwin discusses debates about women in agriculture. Women make up a huge proportion of agricultural labor worldwide, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa where they are responsible for 80% of subsistence agriculture. Policy makers must look at the effects of their decisions on women in farming. The first debate is whether or not African agriculture can become more productive without helping women in farming. Many claim that to increase production, farms must become bigger and more commercialized, while others argue that programs need to focus on small-scale farming. Some point to the large numbers of women farmers and insist that helping women would cause a turn around in agricultural production. By not addressing policy toward them, Africa will have to rely more heavily on food imports. However, women may not always be the main farming group in Africa because the necessary intensification of farming leads to fewer women in farming and more men. Planners failed to recognize the extensive relationships between women and men in African households, and neglecting women led to their being replaced by their male counterparts. Finally, women lack inputs, capital, access to the market and the political pull that are necessary to remain the main source of agricultural labor. The second debate is about the productivity of female farmers relative to male farmers. Comparisons of female headed and male-headed households seem to show that men are more productive. However, many researchers believe this is because female-headed household with no present male are smaller, thus having less available labor. Also, these female households plant different types of crops, mainly food crops, because they have less access to credit. When data on productivity are controlled for other variables, such as relative access to land, labor, and capital, studies show that women are just as productive as men. The third debate is whether or not programs aimed at increasing women’s access to agricultural inputs have been successful. Originally, many economists argued that allowing the market to determine food prices would benefit female farmers. They also claimed that rural women were hurt less by these programs than urban women. However, because rural African women rarely produce enough food for self-sufficiency, they are in fact hurt by rising food prices. Research indicates that only subsistence farming women benefit from structural adjustment because these programs fail to address the gender inequalities in inputs and resources. The final debate addressed in this article is whether or not input subsidies should be specifically targeted to female farmers. Women in Development literature recommends giving women access to inputs to increase productivity, but women still lack this access. Food analysts argue, on the other hand, that all agricultural input subsidies should be removed as they distort the price of food. Gladwin agrees that for African female farmers input subsidies can be useful because these women use very little fertilizer to begin with and because their lack of cash and credit is the reason they do not use fertilizer. Because female farmers mostly produce for subsistence, they do not have money to buy fertilizer. They do not have credit mostly for social reasons such as lack of local club credit, poverty, marital status, and the fear of not being able to repay the loan. As a result it is important for policy makers to recognize that policies need to be specifically addressed at women. Giving female farmers more access to credit will not replace the need for fertilizer subsidies. Gladwin then discusses three sub-issues within this broader debate. First is the effectiveness of additional chemical inputs. Many claim that additional inputs will only harm the environment and further reduce female farming productivity. Others argue, however, that rural women are more connected to their natural resources and have a greater interest in preserving the environment. Therefore, gender-responsive environmental planning is a better solution and removing fertilizer subsidies under the guise of protecting the environment will only hurt female farmers. The second sub-issue deals with credit. Some argue that offering credit will only hurt female farmers by placing them in debt. Targeted loans also are not effective because they are expensive, depend on outside funding, and have default problems. Instead of targeted loans and widespread credit programs, the author suggests a type more similar to the indigenous credit programs, where people in the community who have money loan it to the poor. She also suggests that formal financial institutions mimic this style of credit. The final issue is female legal rights. To empower rural women, they need to be involved in female-empowerment initiatives, as governmental rules regarding female rights are arbitrary and cultural rules inhibit the success of women’s rights.

Stromquist, Nelly P. (ed) (1998), Women in the Third World: An Encyclopedia of Contemporary Issues, pp. 261-272: “Women in Agricultural Systems” by Agnes Quisumbing. The role of women varies by region: in sub- Saharan Africa and Asia women dominate the agricultural sector whereas in northern Africa, Latin America and the Middle East men predominate. The type of farming system varies by region as well, as Asia uses a unified farming system but in Africa members of households are responsible for specific crops. In Latin America, women participate more in the Andean countries than in the southern cone region and machismo plays a role in gender roles in agriculture. There are many constraints on productivity of women in agriculture throughout the world. The first is land rights. All of the types of legal systems tend to limit women’s right to land. Religious laws almost always discriminate against women; examples are Hindu and Islamic law. Many customary laws on the other hand do give women the right to land; examples are in Thailand and the Philippines. Traditionally in Africa, women had the right to land within their family, but western customs of private ownership associated with colonialism led to women having difficulties getting land titles. Without land rights, women also have no way to acquire credit. In the past, governments have implemented many agrarian reform schemes; but in most cases these have only hurt women’s rights to land. In Latin America, legal, structural, and ideological problems have prevented women from benefiting from these reforms. And even where women are equally entitled to land by law, in practice women still rarely receive equal land rights. In addition, women generally own fewer tools than men, and have less access to extension services. There are fewer female extension agents which can lead to women receiving fewer services. Women also have less access to credit which is related to their weak right to land. Without credit, women cannot purchase the productive inputs needed to expand their farming. Finally, women’s agriculture is constrained because of the traditional beliefs that women should take care of domestic activities. They spend numerous hours a day caring for children and cooking instead of working on farms. When compared on a per acre basis, women’s farms usually have lower productivity than men’s. This is because of lower levels of inputs used, educational disadvantages, and the underinvestment in women’s agriculture. Women are less likely to use new technologies. Many times this is for cultural reasons, but mostly this is due to the lack of education available to women. The rate of return to schooling, or the amount that earnings increase from an additional year of schooling, are higher in agricultural areas where newer technologies are being used. Women benefit less from commercialization than men due to their obligations to the household, lack of control over the distribution of resources, and lack of land. Technology changes, due to the fact that their effects cannot be seem immediately, will benefit women’s agriculture only if the demand for female labor increases with the technologies. If technologies increase without increased demand for labor, female workers will be displaced by the new technologies. While commercialization has been shown to increase caloric consumption per household, it affects income, time allocation, and women’s access to land differently than it affects these things for men. In both cases of technologies and commercialization, the rich benefit far more than the poor.