In sub-Saharan Africa, women produce 80-90 percent of the food. They have little access to credit which limits their ability to purchase seeds, fertilizers and other inputs needed to adopt new farming techniques. In this podcast, we hear from Herschelle Milford who is the director of Surplus People Project. SPP advocates for pro poor agrarian reform and food sovereignty.
Women & Food Security
When you see a farmer
on bended knee
tilling land
for the family
The chances are
It is a she
When you see tractor
Passing by
And the driver
Waves you ‘Hi’
The chancees are
It is a he! – A. Mazrui.
Question: were tractors invented to be solely driven by men?
Clearly, other changes in Africa which affect relationships between men and women include the impact of new technologies on gender roles. “Cultivation with the hoe still left the African woman centrally involved in agriculture. But cultivation with the tractor was (and, is, I suppose) often a prescription for male dominance” (Mazrui, A. 1990:179-191). Why must the mechanisation of agriculture lead to the perpetuation of women’s marginalisation?
WHY?
WONDERFUL SOUTH AFRICANS, ARE WE TURNING THE TIDE????
One of the biggest problems facing Africa today is the failure of agricultural production to keep pace with the very rapid increase in population. Food production per individual declined in most African countries, and even in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous and resource-rich nation, the growth in population outpaces the growth in agricultural output.
To overcome the food crisis, African governments must give more attention to the critical issue of the need for real empowerment of small scale farmers, especially those holdings led by women and youth in rural areas. In South Africa, formations such as Women in Agriculture and Rural Development(WARD); Youth in Agriculture and Rural Development (YARD)need to be strengthened to allow their members to share experiences and speak with one voice on matters of common concern. Some governments, against the heavy odds, have recognised this and put special emphasis on agriculture, generally with positive results, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Tanzania, Malawi and the commendable strides (though more needed, particularly, in the area of rigorous implementation, monitoring and evaluation) by the South African Government, are examples. African governments also require greater cooperation among themselves and from the rest of the global community to help keep down the costs of farm equipment, fertilisers, and imported oil, all needed to improve food production.
The Future Agricultures Consortium (www.future-agricultures.org) has made useful observations and pronouncements on performance of Agriculture in Africa, and if the reading of their policy briefs is anything to go by, it could then, perhaps, be concluded that atleast four factors underlie the persistent under-performance of the Agricultural sector on the African continent, and those hampering factors are:
• The failure of the prescriptions of the ‘Washington consensus’, particularly, the withdrawal of the state and excessive reliance on market based solutions to food insecurity.
• Severe shortage in essential elements that are key to successful agricultural production and trade (such as, roads infrastructure, transport system, information, technology, etc).
• Pressures of globalisation and lack of protection for poor, small and vulnerable farmers in Africa, against unfair international competition e.g. agricultural subsidies and protectionism by Western countries which give unfair advantage to their own farmers.
• Low soil fertility, recurrent droughts, or floods which are exarcebated by a recent trend towards more erratic weather associated with climate change.
While the South is being marginalised by globalisation, Africa as a region finds itself in worse situation. Poverty, disease and ignorance fifty one years after independence, still remain high on the list of key challenges facing the continent primarily because of serious structural distortions that see African economies, lacking internal intergration, and, as they are, continue to rely on the production of cheap raw materials for exports to the West. Africa Sub-Saharan States (SSA’s) with population growth averaging 2.8% during 1994-98 and the GDP growth rate at 3.5% during the same period, is still far below the 6% GDP growth rate required to significantly impact on the people’s lives trapped in absolute poverty (Maloka, 2000), and according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Africa remains very marginal in global trade and Foreign Direct Investment flows. While almost 50% of SSA’s total exports are by South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ivory Coast; and almost 70% of total SSA imports by South Africa, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Angola, SSA’s share of the total global trade is less than two percent.
As Maloka, aptly puts it, “Africa needs to bring the State back”. In deed, fifty one years of independence have failed to produce a significant, indigenous entrepreneurial cadreship capable to drive development. The State still has a role to play in the process of accumulation and development; empowering marginalised sections of society, especially women in the periphery; preventing the continuing polarisation of Africa’s people; managing and regulating relations with global forces to prevent harsh external domination; and preventing the neglect of local dynamics in development.Surely this State has to be founded on Ubuntu, Unity, Democracy, Non-racialism, Non-sexism and also orientated against corruption and the rural urban divide.
Thank you for your comment Khaya. Your comments are indeed useful for a framework of understanding some of the problems of food insecurity and the need for food sovereignty for understanding hunger at household level and in national indicators in Sub-Saharan Africa and the continent as a whole. The guest editor of the Agenda issue “Gender, food and nutrition security’
Shirin Motala (Human Science Research Programme) notes with concern that in South Africa during the global recession a study by the HSRC found there was a 2-3% increase in household experience of hunger in South Africa, and more importantly, that female-headed households have born the brunt of the suffering. Locating women with an analysis of food security points very clearly to how community and household gardens and subsistence farming by the poor play a very important role in poor communities. African women’s expanded access to land for farming is a priority and recent research also points to the unmet need by women farmers for agricultural extension support programmes and appropriate farming technologies (this point is elaborated on in the issue of Agenda ‘Gender and Rurality’).
Lou Haysom – Managing editor of Agenda