The agricultural system in Sub-Saharan Africa is a predominantly small-scale farming system with more than 50% of the agricultural activity performed by women, producing about 60-70% of the food in this region. While women provide the majority of the labor in agricultural production, their access and control over productive resources is greatly constrained due to inequalities constructed by patriarchal norms.
Women’s role in agriculture
Women play a critical role in food security in this region of Africa by fulfilling their role as food providers. They make essential contributions to the agricultural and rural economies in all developing countries. There are 3 basic variants of household food production systems in Sub-Saharan Africa:
Women are responsible for the production of all or most food crops. In this variant, food plots are considered women's plots. Men and women jointly cultivate staple food crops in fields controlled by male household heads. In this type, the male household head controls the output. Men produce food, while women transform the agricultural products into food. This variant is mainly encountered where Islamic practices of female seclusion prevent women from engaging in fieldwork. In many countries in Africa, there is a rigid division of labor by gender in agriculture. This division may be based on types of activities performed on the farm or types of crops grown by men and women. The division of labor is based on patriarchal norms that typically require women to care for the needs of the members of the household and men to bring money. Women are also expected to help their fathers and later on their husbands in the fields, which increases women's workload. Sometimes men help women in clearing their plots to prepare the land.
In regions where women and men work on separate plots growing different crops, women are usually engaged in subsistence farming to provide food to fulfill the needs of the members of the household, while men are engaged in the production of a different subsistence crop and/or cash or export crops. Since the early 21st century, this pattern has been prevalent in several Sub-Saharan African countries like Tanzania, Uganda, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, etc. This distinction can be explained as a result of gender norms that assign women with the responsibility of feeding the family and men with the responsibility of providing cash income. In Southeast Nigeria, for example, there exist distinctions between traditionally "male" and "female" crops. "Female" crops are normally ephemeral or short-lived household crops, including cassava, beans, maize, plantains, and cocoyams. "Male" crops, meanwhile, include food staples such as yams, which are also considered the "prestige" crop. Rural women often manage complex households and pursue multiple livelihood strategies, Although women mainly grow food crops for household consumption, if there is any marketable surplus, they sell it in the market. However, women's primary responsibility is to feed the family and only after that they can engage in other income earning activities. The distinction between crops is sometimes not very clear especially in the case of maize which is a staple crop in several Sub-Saharan African countries as well as a cash crop. With the introduction of high yielding varieties of maize, now the distinction is that the high yielding varieties tend to be men's crop, and local varieties are women's crop. This pattern has been observed in Malawi where local varieties of maize are woman's crop while hybrid varieties are cash crops cultivated by men. The logic is the same: high yielding varieties provide large amount of marketable surplus which allows men to provide cash income while women continue with varieties that provide enough for subsistence consumption. Women's role is not limited to food production; they are also required to process and prepare the food they grow, perform care work in the household and also help men in their cash crop production. As for division of labor by tasks, traditionally, men cleared the forests, burned the bush, tended and harvested the fruits of tree crops such as the oil palm, fenced fields against wild animals, and in some regions planted crops. Women are responsible for weeding, post-harvest production, and food preparation. Women are also responsible for transporting and marketing the cash crops with male members of the household. In a study for Kenya in the 1980s, it was reported that women were mainly responsible for hand digging, harvesting and transporting the crops while men were responsible for building the granary. However, gradually the distinction between men's and women's tasks is becoming quite blurred. There are very few tasks that are done exclusively by men like clearing of field. Women perform most of the tasks on their plots from sowing, weeding to harvesting, and may get some assistance from men in clearing and preparing the land for cultivation. On a man's plot, women may provide help in weeding, harvesting, etc. There is also some evidence that the roles of men in subsistence agriculture were traditionally somewhat greater in many regions before the period following the introduction of additional New World crops from the Americas such as plantains, maize, and cassava. In contrast to certain older traditional and indigenous staple food crops like yams or millet which tended to, and continued to be, grown mainly by men or with more male involvement (sometimes grown along with, varying by region, supplementary food crops often grown with more female involvement such as cocoyams or sometimes rice), New World crops were often grown with more female involvement. The introduction of cash crops as well as of wage labor during the colonial period (also incentivized partly by colonial-era taxes in cash), and the formation of a more cash-based economy, also tended to further lessen the participation of men in subsistence farming, as they increasingly participated in those newer more lucrative occupations in order to acquire and provide cash for their families at home. Men's traditional involvement in subsistence farming in pre-colonial times tended to be somewhat greater in West Africa than in Central and much of East Africa.
Changing roles
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