What are the key strategies for closing the gender gap in agricultural production? This paper from the International Food Policy Research Institute reviews attempts to increase poor female farmers’ access to, and control of, productive resources in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Consideration of the literature of the past decade indicates that while promising new approaches to meeting the needs of female farmers are emerging, few have been rigorously evaluated. Future interventions need to consider, among other factors: interactions among resource inputs; the trade-offs between practical and strategic gender needs; and the culture and context specificity of gender roles.
The differential constraints faced by poor female farmers, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, are well-documented in the development literature. Many studies demonstrate women’s lack of access to land, extension services, credit, and improved crop varieties, as well as their comparably poor levels of education, health, and nutrition. Moreover, the cost of such disparities, in terms of productivity and economic efficiency, is becoming clear. Indeed, some data suggests that increasing resources controlled by women could promote increased agricultural productivity.
Given this evidence, development practitioners are recognising that ‘gender matters’ and are designing interventions to reduce the gender gap in access to resources for women, particularly for female farmers. A review of ten years of published and unpublished literature (1998-2008) yields some promising new approaches to meeting the productive needs of this underserved population:
- Strengthening women’s land rights and investing in schooling: Lack of access to land and low levels of schooling are two basic constraints that limit women’s agricultural productivity.
- Promotion of divisible technologies or smaller input packages that are more affordable, as well as opportunities for groups to achieve economies of scale: Women’s lack of access means finding smaller scale inputs or forming producer or credit groups to improve women’s investment potential.
- Adaptation of programme design or service delivery to client needs: This might involve changing the terms of credit provided through microfinance institutions, providing different types of savings instruments, tailoring agricultural extension messages to the characteristics of client groups, designing culturally appropriate and acceptable technology, or providing culturally acceptable ways of marketing agricultural produce.
- Considering interaction among inputs rather than treating each input in isolation: Investing in different types of capital across a range of resources can be more effective than focusing on a single resource.
- Taking gender roles into account when designing and implementing projects: Interventions should explicitly account for gender roles so as not to exacerbate inequalities in power and resources.
Despite the importance of agricultural interventions in increasing female farmers’ access to productive resources and improving food security, there has been little evaluation of those interventions, as compared with interventions designed to increase investment in human capital. Recent food price crises only serve to illustrate more clearly the need for better funded and better targeted agricultural interventions, particularly those aimed at female farmers. Some recommendations for development practitioners include:
- Support more rigorous evaluation of existing interventions in order to better inform future planning.
- Explore alternative design and delivery mechanisms in an effort to accommodate local conditions.
- Understand and accommodate the potential trade-offs between strategic and practical gender needs: Local gender norms do not change rapidly and challenging them may unintentionally result in an erosion of women’s claims to resources. Strategies for direct challenge must therefore be weighed against other project objectives, such as increased food security or better management of natural resources, which, in turn, may influence gender norms.
- Ensure sensitivity to culture and context — as gender norms vary, there can be no ‘one size fits all’ approach.
