“My garden is a great help”: gender and urban gardening in Buea, Cameroon

Abstract

At a time of economic crisis and sharply rising food prices, urban farming is increasingly helping to sustain households. Gender is generally thought to be a key variable in this but studies are still in their infancy. Looking at the phenomenon from a livelihood perspective and based on a survey carried out in Buea, Cameroon, this paper deals with a number of key issues related to gender and urban gardening, including access to resources, division of labour and the benefits and challenges encountered. An additional variable, namely the marital status of the gardener, is also considered. There appear to be important differences between male and female gardeners in various respects, and marital status plays a role not only among female gardeners but to some extent among male gardeners too.

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“…The gendered difference observed in the cropping systems may be due to differences in access to land. In fact, men had larger plot sizes compared to women, as it was also reported in vegetable production systems in Buea, Cameroon [26] and in southwestern Nigeria [30]. This supports the general gender-differentiated resource base of African farming systems [29,31].…”

“…Vegetable species are dominated by African indigenous species, and the use of improved seeds is low. It is a part-time activity for the majority of people involved and represents a typical example of traditional vegetable farming systems common in West Africa [26]. Indeed, in traditional vegetable farming systems, vegetable production and marketing are undertaken mainly by women [2,26,27].…”

“…It is a part-time activity for the majority of people involved and represents a typical example of traditional vegetable farming systems common in West Africa [26]. Indeed, in traditional vegetable farming systems, vegetable production and marketing are undertaken mainly by women [2,26,27]. This is the case in Fombawi and Sakabansi, the rural areas, where this activity is undertaken exclusively by women.…”

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“…As for the latter, this high percentage is related to the fact that cattle -which require thorough care -are very commonly held. A recent study among urban gardeners in Buea, Cameroon (Ngome and Foeken 2012) found that more than 40% of the farmers considered lack of education and training as a constraint. This applied more to female gardeners (61%) than male gardeners (21%).…”

“…Usually, women were involved in these transactions on the producers" side and obviously only small quantities were traded this way. Yet, some urban farmers were not satisfied with the marketing infrastructure, as these remarks -all from Mbeya -illustrate: In the earlier mentioned Buea (Cameroon) study (Ngome and Foeken, 2012), despite the fact that the research locations enjoyed good road networks and are strategically located near two major markets to allow for the easy transportation of vegetables (mainly tomatoes) to sell, some respondents still complained about "market constraints". Moreover, in order to improve the situation, many gardeners suggested the provision of cooled, public storage facilities so that post-harvest losses could be reduced.…”