Contribution to FAO Discussion on Rural Women: Striving for gender transformation impacts
By Taibat Moji Yusuf, Kwara State University, Malete, Nigeria
Introduction
Gender defines how power and resources are shared among females and males. Both rural women and men throughout the world are engaged in a range of activities essential for household welfare, agricultural productivity, and economic growth. However, women’s substantial contributions are marginalized and undervalued in conventional agricultural analyses and policies. Policy makers and agricultural administrators assumed that farmers are men while women only give helping hands on the farm. For this reason most government policies, programmes and services were mainly focused on male farmers. However, the changing rural social structure resulting from male out-migration and wars has drastically changed gender responsibility. Rural women are becoming more responsible for household food security and children welfare as indicated by the increasing number of female headed households in the developing countries. Estimated numbers are 45% in Kenya,35% in Malawi, 30-40%in Zambia and 15% in Nigeria (FAO 2005). The main global challenge now is how to make the female farmers who had no access to education, land and other productive resources and were victims of the harmful cultural practices to do the work of “male” farmers effectively and efficiently and also to ensure gender balance in agricultural development. The rest of the discussion looks at the challenges of gender balance, the consequences of the challenges and how the challenges could be tackled to ensure gender balance when there will be equal participation of women and men in decision making, equal ability to exercise their human rights, equal access and control of resources and benefits of development.
Major Challenges to gender equality in Agricultural production in Nigeria
These are grouped under four major headings;
1) Women Legal and cultural status: these have to do with cultural laws, customs, beliefs and attitudes in some communities which confine rural women mostly to the domestic sphere and limits their participation in politics and public activities. They affect women access to productive resources, services, education, employment and credit. In some regions in Nigeria, girls are not allowed to go to school or are often removed from school instead of boys to help with farming and household work anytime there is a work burden in the family. Also Women are made to handle low-paid tasks in agro-processing and their wages are usually lower than males.
2) Property rights and inheritance laws: Lack of property right and the patrilineal system of land inheritance operating in most regions in Nigeria, do not permit women to have direct access to lands and other natural resources except through their husbands and male relatives. Since access to land and property right are tied to access to credit and acquisition of capital assets, women often have difficulty obtaining credit or acquire capital like the new labour and time saving farm innovations. Extension service which is to provide agricultural information and access to farm resources is equally tied to farmers’ land title and making women to lose out in important information and training that will improve their farm efficiency.
3) Gender Role; has to do with behaviours and tasks that a society considers appropriate for men, women, boys and girls. In some societies, male are mainly responsible for commercial agriculture. They prepare land, irrigate the crops, harvest and transport to markets. They own and trade large animals, cut, haul and fell timbers from forest. Women and girls play largely unnoticed, unpaid but important roles in generating family income by providing labour for planting, weeding, harvesting and threshing crops and processing produce for sale. In most parts of Nigeria, women are responsible for maintaining households, raise children, grow and prepare food, manage small animals, collect fuel wood and water
4) . Financial systems that perpetuate women discrimination; Banks consider women a higher risk because they do not trust women entrepreneurship ability and as such do not provide credit to women. They do not have gender- specific modes of transactions, they expect women to handle voluminous bookwork as educated male farmers and demand for loan collaterals which by right (rural) women do not have. Most of the financial institutions including newly introduced Microfinance banks are concentrated in the urban areas rather than rural areas where are large number of women farmers who seriously need financial assistance.
Consequences of the Gender constraints; considered under two major aspects include;
1) Economic exclusion resulting into
wasted Human capital
low labour productivity
low agricultural production
food insecurity and
slow development
2) High Social Cost in terms of
High rates of under nutrition
High infant mortality
and high HIV/AIDS infection among others
Ways to address the deeply rooted gender norms and involving men and boys to achieve gender transformative impacts
This aspect is considered under the three tiers of government levels operating in Nigeria including Local Government Authorities (LGAs), State Government and Federal Government levels
Local Government Authority
The property and land inheritance law which inhibits rural women from having direct access to land and other natural resources could be addressed right at the local government level. All it takes is to encourage formation of separate cooperative societies among men and women. These societies are to be registered in each local government areas (LGAs) of the country. Since women do not have right to property, the local government authorities should acquire large parcels of land, clear and prepare the land then distributes on legal basis amongst the registered women cooperative members. Similar treatment should be extended to males without access to land (this group can be known through farm analysis). Those male farmers with land asset should be encouraged to pull their assets together and work as registered cooperative groups to benefit from the transformation agenda of the government. The separation of the groups will make it easier for women to participate actively in agricultural production without any fear of being molested or shortchanged by men. It will also provide the opportunity for women to own land and better bargaining power in the purchase of farm inputs and selling of their farm produce. Education and training which has always been the main problem of most women, preventing them from accessing credit, productive resources and use of modern technologies could also be handled through this arrangement using staff of the extension units of the local government authorities. The legal status of women could be addressed by the inclusion of Government / policy processes in the extension programme. This will help men and women to know their rights and how to fight for their rights.
In a nutshell a well coordinated and managed LGAs is the solution to problems of property right and land law, education and training, legal status and better bargaining power in buying and selling activities
State Government Level
Because of the very low level of education, culture and norms , rural women in Nigeria still depend largely on hired labour on their private farms for land clearing and preparation ( to complement their personal labour) at exhorbitant prices because they have to compete with the male farmers in this regard. They also supply labour on their husband farms in the area of planting, weeding, fertilizer application, harvesting and processing in addition to the domestic workload thus, making their work more over whelming and less attractive. To tackle the labour problem, Nigeria Government established national center for agricultural mechanization (NCAM) in two states Ilorin in Kwara State and Ibadan in Oyo State to provide simple improved farm tools for rural farmers. Although the gesture is in the right direction, NCAM products are few, expensive and not gender friendly. Most of their products are constructed for male farmers.
For the purpose of gender equality, a gender specific tool which will save labour, cost, time and can be easily handled by both men and women should be provided. The centers may be provided with recommended specifications and funds to produce large quantity.
To ensure usage and patronage, the centers should be replicated in all states. The earlier formed farmers’ cooperative societies in each LGAs should register separately with the centers in their states. Gender specific tools produced by the centers should then be distributed to the different groups of farmers on loan to be paid back after harvesting. Each society should be made to sell their produce directly to the centers since the centers have various storage facilities such silos, cribs and cool room to their credit. This will allow the centers to deduct their money and pay the farmers their dues. The produce bought from the farmers can be supplied directly to the processing companies for value addition Thus NCAM could be used as an assembling centre for farm produce as well as collecting center tor processing companies to ensure fair transaction devoid of the harmful practices of middlemen
However the centers need initial funding ,for replication in each state and large production of their products. The initial funding should be in form of revolving loan which should be paid back as soon as the centers find their feet. The refund of the loan should be made on yearly basis as they collect their pay from the farmers. The cooperative farmers and the processing companies also need funding for their various initial take off.
Positive transformation to farm mechanization, active participation by individuals in the society and value addition food chains will be made possible through this arrangement and will later translate to increased food production, farmers income, food security and poverty reduction.
Federal Government level
National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme is a Nigerian programme organized for young graduates to serve their fatherland after graduation. It was established by the FG several decades ago to foster unity among the youths and provide man power where such is lacking. Right now the program seems to have outlived its usefulness, because the youths in some states are been used as sacrificial lambs for the purpose of politics. The program can be rebranded and made more functional by diverting the energy and interest of the vibrant youths towards productive agricultural activities. Doing this will engage both the boys and girls in productive activities where they can acquire entrepreneurship skills which will prepare them for real life experience and curb the problem of youth restlessness resulting from idleness and unemployment which often lead into various vices in the country. In addition the arrangement will provide plenty of agricultural produce for home consumption and exportation.
The Procedure for engaging the youths
The government needs to procure large area of land in each state, Provides tractors and implements for land clearing and preparation, farm inputs, improved seeds and seedlings, storage facilities, processing facilities and regular payment of the corps allowance. The corps members in each state should be grouped according to their fields of interest to handle various aspects of agriculture. For instance ,those in education and extension may be made to handle extension education, those in medicals to take care of their colleagues, those in animal science to take care of animal management, the veterinary to take care of animal reproduction and health, those in economics to coordinate the farm activities and handle the issues of trading (buying and selling) . The few youths who are not educated could be absorbed at the local government level.
Dr. Taibat Moji Yusuf