Inclusion is Vital for Sustainable Food Production & Economic Growth in Africa
Women’s overrepresentation in agricultural tasks, combined with the existence of a gender gap in agricultural productivity and the need for inclusion across value chains.
There are a lot of reasons why we associate women with food production.
Women are those saddled with the responsibility of buying food from the market and preparing it in their homes.
Across Africa, Women are the people who you’ll find selling food products in market.
Female representation in farming is not one of them. Surprised? It’s not your fault.
In 1972, the United Nations reported with absolutely no supporting evidence that women did 60 to 80 percent of the agricultural work in Africa. Despite being little more than a guess, the statistic became “fact” in development circles (I have used this a number of times). In reality, women do roughly 40 percent of the work producing livestock and crops in Africa.
Concerns about gender inequality have been voiced since the 1980s, yet still today, these same concerns are expressed with respect to gender differences, women’s access to and control over resources, and women’s empowerment. Has nothing really changed?
Photo Credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images
Segmentation of crop types by Gender
The term“Women’s crops” is a familiar feature in writing about smallholder agriculture in Africa south of the Sahara. Although not always easy to define, they generally refer to crops grown by women for home consumption rather than for sale. Gendered cropping patterns are not deliberate as no crops are grown exclusively by men or by women. Yet men are disproportionately involved in the production of cash and commercially viable crops than women. The ownership of farms such as Cashew nuts, Sesame seed, Soybean, Cotton, Groundnuts which are the top ten exportable agricultural commodities in West Africa is dominated by men. Cash crops are more frequently grown by men, compared to women, and are grown more frequently on male owned lands.
How policy instigates gender roles & women’s rights to land ownership
On the 1st of March 2022, five bills that sought to promote more opportunities for women in political parties, governance, and the society at large were all rejected by the House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Denying Nigerian women indigeneity through marriage.
Denying additional seats for women in the National Assembly.
Denying citizenship to a foreign-born husband of a Nigerian woman.
Denying 35 percent appointed positions for women and settling for 20 percent
Denying women affirmative action in party administration and leadership.
Land acquisition and use remain a critical issue of great policy relevance in developing countries such as Nigeria. Land is the most precious asset for those engaged in agriculture. Inheritance remains the main type of land acquisition; women are less likely to inherit land when other male family members still exist, due particularly to the idea that women are not permanent members of the family and their ultimate objective is to marry and leave their birth family. Denying women the right to indigeneity through marriage disenfranchises them from land ownership.
In most “Nigerian cultures”, a woman adopts her husband's state after marriage but the Nigerian law says a woman must retain her state of origin. This conflict prevents women from political participation, land ownership, inheritance, and administrative leadership. Land ownership is still controlled by the state and customary landholding systems. These institutions do not cater to women’s right to own lands irrespective of their marital status.
The impact of women’s hidden work
Every day, millions of women globally engage in activities that they are not financially remunerated for. This unpaid labor includes cooking, cleaning, showing up at children’s school activities, and caring for others, all of which are considered essential tasks for keeping the global economy functioning. According to The New York Times, women’s unpaid labor is worth 10.9 trillion dollars.
Much of the labor women engage in is invisible and is not included in the gross domestic product (GDP) calculations of many countries. Hence while women spend fewer hours in paid labor, they end up spending long hours working. It denies women their voices, devalues their work, and makes women’s position unequal to men’s, from the household to the national and global levels. The African Union identifies and advocates for gender equality as not only a fundamental human right, but also an integral part of regional integration, economic growth, and social development.
We need to address the structural injustices that keep more women at the lower point of the pyramid. Women play significant roles in production and post-harvest processing that are often key determinants of the size and quality of the final produced commodities. Yet, these roles are often informal, unacknowledged, or under-resourced.
Conditions for all women will improve when there are more women in leadership roles giving strong voices to their needs and concern. We must ensure the inclusion of women in Africa’s development agenda.
Happy International Women’s Day!
Women best ............