Feminization of African Agriculture and the Meaning of Decision-Making for Empowerment and Sustainability

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess women’s decision-making power in small-scale agriculture in six African countries in view of the feminization of agriculture and to discuss the meaning of decision-making in relation to women’s empowerment and sustainability. The data are drawn from a multisite and mixed-method agricultural research and development project in six sub-Saharan countries including two sites in each country. The five domains of empowerment outlined in the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index are used to structure the analysis. The results indicate that in the selected sites in Malawi, Rwanda and South Africa, women farmers tend to dominate agricultural decision-making, while the result is more mixed in the Kenyan sites, and decision-making tends to be dominated by men in the sites in Tanzania and Ethiopia. Despite women participating in agricultural decision-making, the qualitative results show that women small-scale farmers were not perceived to be empowered in any of the country sites. It appears that the feminization of agriculture leads to women playing a more important role in decision-making but also to more responsibilities and heavier workloads without necessarily resulting in improvements in well-being outcomes that would enhance sustainability.

Gendered exposure, vulnerability, and response: Malaria risk in a changing climate in Western Kenya

“…This finding is consistent with existing research, which demonstrates the trend of feminization of the agriculture sector in Kenya (Onyalo, 2019), and that while women have the power to make decisions for subsistence crops, men retain the power to make decisions over economic or profit-making crops (Haug et al, 2021). This remains true even when the woman performs all the manual work and even when the man has migrated to an urban area (Bikketi et al, 2016).…”

“…FPE literature examines whether this shift in farm responsibilities and activities results in greater gender equality or empowerment (Kawarazuka et al, 2022). The Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) provides a framework for considering female empowerment through an assessment of agricultural production, resources, income, leadership and time (Haug et al, 2021) carried out a study of 6 African countries: Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia using the 5 WEAI criteria of empowerment to assess how gender dynamics are changing at the farm level as a result of the feminization of agriculture…”

“…This framework is derived from the IPCC risk framework, complex risks theory and feminist political ecology to illustrate the complexity of the interactions between and within the gendered determinants of climate change and malaria risk. (Haug et al, 2021). It was found that while women are starting to participate more in agricultural decision-making, women could not be classed as more empowered in any of the country sites as women have more responsibilities and heavier workloads absent of improvements in wellbeing.…”

Labour-saving technologies mitigate the effect of women’s agriculture time-use constraints on stunting in rural Uganda

“…From the time-use module of the survey we determined the number of hours, whether paid or unpaid, spent by a representative woman of the household on agricultural work within 24 hours prior to the survey. Given that women often perform the majority of farm work in subsistence-oriented households in many African countries (Palacios-Lopez et al 2017;Haug et al 2021), women's use of LSATs was proxied by a household's use of animal traction for ploughing. The inclusion of other covariates, such as child, maternal/caregiver and household-level characteristics, was further informed by the UNICEF conceptual framework of malnutrition (UNICEF 1991).…”

“…In some African countries, like South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Malawi, women not only provide the bulk of labour needed (Palacios-Lopez et al 2017;Haug et al 2021), but also use mainly labourintensive tools to accomplish tasks such as planting, weeding and harvesting. Agricultural technologies and practices that support these tasks provide an avenue for saving rural women's time (FAO 2019).…”