by Bright Owusu Asante, Ranjitha Puskur, Elizabeth Garner, Margaret Najjingo Mangheni, Richard Adabah, Maxwell Darko Asante, Benedicta Nsiah Frimpong, and Stephen Prah
Women in Ghana have been found to adopt high-yielding varieties and improved management systems at lower rates than men. There is an urgent need for women farmers to participate meaningfully in the technology development process in order to enhance the adoption of new technologies to enhance productivity and improve the incomes and well-being of women.
Agricultural development aims at ending poverty, increasing food security, and improving the livelihoods of rural farm households in developing countries. Evidence indicates that men and women do not adopt new technologies at the same rate or do not benefit equally from their introduction.
Women in Ghana have been found to adopt high-yielding varieties and improved management systems at lower rates than men. There is an urgent need for women farmers to participate meaningfully in the technology development process in order to enhance the adoption of new technologies to enhance productivity and improve the incomes and well-being of women.
Empirical studies in Benin, Ghana, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Nigeria have all documented gender-based inequalities in the adoption of improved technologies.
A number of factors result in inequalities between men and women in the participation of rice-breeding varieties. These include gender norms and cultural practices and uneven access to resources that affect participation in household decision-making, agricultural activities resulting in low productivity, and low rates of adoption.
A study showed a profound role of culture (culture refers to the ideas, customs, and social behavior of a particular people or society) in women’s participation in household decision-making where their views are often not considered highly in such decision-making processes. Africa’s patriarchal system that gives a lot of power to the man in household decision-making is regarded as a bane to women’s empowerment, and Ghana is no exception.
Although, in southern Ghana, the high dominance of the Akan matrilineal systems often enhances women’s role in household decision-making. Such decision-making covers areas such as access and control over household recourses including productive assets such as land, labor, and capital, which have the capacity to enhance the ability of women to participate in agricultural development programs including rice-breeding activities (rice-breeding activities refer to participatory variety selection and on-farm evaluations by farmers towards the development of improved rice varieties).
Access to important productive resources such as farmland, labor, agricultural inputs (e.g., quality seed and fertilizer), capital, and complementary rice-productivity-enhancing technologies (knowledge, equipment, etc.) is required by smallholder farmers—men and women—to be productive. Men and women also need equitable control over their farm outputs. Any imbalance in the gendered access to or control of these resources limits the development of the rice sector.
The concept of gender norms refers to ideas about how men and women should behave in society. These norms comprise everything from cultural beliefs to expected behaviors and practices. These invisible social structures constrain and shape the environment within which men and women operate.
Social norms (social norms are informal rules that govern the behavior of groups and societies) influence decision-making processes in the household, which in turn affect the ability of women to access training opportunities, as seen in seed potato multiplication and ware (ware potato refers to the one cultivated for consumption and not for the vines to be used as seed) potato production in Malawi.
Social norms require that women often respond to the views of men in most household decision-making; hence, to a great extent, women tend to rally with such decisions, which encompass training decisions including participation in rice-breeding activities. Researchers suggested that social behavior and traditional rules of men and women have to be well considered.
For example, when men receive information meant for women to take action on a given farm activity, it does not result in the intended productivity gains or reduction in stock losses. In spite of these developments, there is still a gap in information on the role of gender norms and practices—and access and control of resources and how they influence men’s and women’s participation in agricultural training and particularly rice-breeding activities such as on-farm evaluations and field days.
To develop effective and efficient rice-breeding programs that respond to the needs of men and women, these factors need to be analyzed and investigated.
Furthermore, some social norms and practices limit women’s time in agricultural activities. For instance, women’s participation in organized training activities has been seen to be constrained by lack of time due to the heavy productive, reproductive, and community roles that they play. Women dedicate little time to crop production and other related farming activities because of extra responsibilities such as caregiving and working full-time.
In addition, women’s role within the social context often goes unrecognized.
In Ghana, the situation is not different; for instance, women farmers tend to have access to and control of production resources mainly through their husbands or male children, especially with regard to resources such as land and labor.
The paper focuses on perceptions of rice-breeding activities (on-farm trials and field days), factors influencing participation in these activities, and factors influencing access to and control of resources among men and women rice farmers in Southern Ghana.
Insights from the study will enhance gender equity in promoting the participation of both men and women in rice-varietal activities.
This paper examined the access and control of resources and participation in rice-breeding activities among men and women farmers in southern Ghana using mixed methods. Further, the perceptions of men and women farmers about breeding activities and major production constraints were also examined.
The result shows that some farming activities are labeled as activities for men while others as activities solely for women. Men dominated activities that included land preparation, weeding, spraying, and harvesting, whereas women’s related activities are transplanting, gathering during harvesting, winnowing, helping with milling, packaging, and marketing.
The results again revealed that there are significant differences in the access and control of resources for rice-production activities including rice-breeding activities between men and women within farm households in favor of the men.
Generally, men tend to have more control and access to resources such as land, labor, improved seeds, fertilizers, weedicides, and pesticides than women for rice-production activities. This is because their role as household heads influences household production decisions.
With regards to participation in the on-farm evaluation of rice varieties and field days, the men significantly participated more in these activities than their women counterparts. Both men and women rice farmers in general have positive perceptions about breeding activities and their implications.
Years of schooling, dependency ratio, rice-farming experience, farm size, number of rice plots, extension contacts, credit access, and FBO participation were found to positively influence participation in breeding activities, whereas the distance to market was negative. Moreover, there was a clear gender differential in variables such as the number of plots, years of schooling, dependency ratio, rice-farming experience, farm size, extension contacts, credit access, and FBO participation.
These factors significantly and positively influenced access to production resources but negatively influenced control of production resources in rice-breeding activities among the men and women in southern Ghana.
To promote equitable access and control of resources, as well as encourage participation in rice-breeding activities among farmers, especially women rice farmers in southern Ghana, there is a need for gender analysis to understand the needs of men and women and the promotion of gender-responsive rice-breeding activities.
This can be achieved through integrating gender perspectives into all aspects of the breeding program’s design and implementation.
In addition, equitable access and control of farm resources such as land, labor, improved seeds, and chemicals among men and women farmers should be duly addressed. Factors such as education, credit access, and FBO membership, which positively influenced the control and access of farm resources among women farmers, should be promoted and taken into consideration by policymakers and stakeholders to develop and implement gender-friendly policies.
Further, gender-sensitive land tenure policies should be promoted at the community level by the relevant stakeholders to ensure equitable land distribution and access for both men and women farmers. The significant effect of extension delivery on participation in rice breeding programs suggests the need to promote gender-responsive extension services
Read the study:
Asante BO, Puskur R, Garner E, Mangheni MN, Adabah R, Asante MD, Frimpong BN, and Prah S. (2023) Access and Control of Resources and Participation in Rice-Breeding Activities among Men and Women Farmers in Southern Ghana. Sustainability. 15(9):7069.
