The 2020 Global Gender Gap report adds a more dismal fact - that it will take 99.5 years for the world to achieve the gender parity it wishes to see and that’s only if countries start making necessary changes now.
Inability to meet gender equality goals entails that progress in spheres where women are key such as improving food and nutrition security, is also being stalled because women are not being given sufficient access to the tools
they need to contribute to bettering the situation.
In the agriculture sector, the role of women cannot be overemphasized. While women farmers are key in reducing poor nutrition levels, they are also necessary in increasing crop diversification and agricultural productivity as a whole. In Zambia, a study revealed that male farmers were skewed towards maize production while women farmers were inclined to produce a variety of other crops particularly legumes (Mofya-Mukuka & Hichaambwa, 2016) thereby showing how important they are to transforming the country’s agriculture sector.
On national scale, the inability to attain gender equality in the agriculture sector will make it difficult to enhance meaningful progress towards meeting the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) Malabo commitments of developing inclusive agricultural transformation, ending hunger and building climate resilience.
The three imbalances that continue to widen the gap between women and men farmers include: women’s insufficient access to land rights, insufficient access to inputs and finance and; low inclusion of women in decision-making activities. Zambia is no exception in facing these challenges.
Land rights - how can she sow where she won’t reap?
When Zambia Republican president, Edgar Lungu, officiated at the International Women’s Day commemorations in Lusaka, he said that “Realizing the objective of gender equality between man and woman has not been easy in Zambia because our society is still strongly patriarchal and is governed by male values.”
The President’s words are indisputable when one considers the fact that many women still access land through a male relative usually a husband, a father or a brother. This entails that when this male relative dies or there is a divorce, a woman risks being landless. Consequently, this affects how women farm because they become reluctant to invest in something that they are unlikely to benefit from in the long run. In this regard, a woman is unlikely to invest in improving soil health or planting an orchid, for instance, because she is not recognized as the owner of the land she is improving on.
In Zambia, the government has established gender-responsive land policies that aim at enhancing land ownership for women but under customary law, these policies are somewhat hindered by some prevailing cultural norms that do not recognize women’s rights to inherit or own land.
Access to inputs and finances – teach her to fish and she will feast for a lifetime
Financial institutions are reluctant to offer credit to smallholder rural farmers because of the need for collateral. While men can offer land or equipment for instance, a woman does not own such tools making her a less eligible candidate for lending institutions.
Access to finance is the one critical asset that smallholder farmers need to take their agricultural practices to the next level. Finance is the only tool holding farmers back from mechanization and adding value to their products. However, few financial institutions are willing to take a risk on stallholder farmers let alone women farmers.
Food and Agricultural Organization Country Representative, Dr. George Okech, explains that if women could be given easier access to finance, they would be able to access production inputs including land.
“We need to make financial institutions realize that agriculture itself is a viable industry where they should be able to lend [and] provide access to women...They also need to consider the types of lending rates…because the rates that we see within the financial institutions are very high,” Dr. Okech.
Decision-making – the power of choice
The women farmers’ decision-making power is taking away because of such influences which do not work in her favor.
Mrs. Norah Hachiwa-Mubiana, is a renowned for her success as a farmer in Chikankata district from Southern province. Her success is a clear testimonial of what women farmers can achieve when they are given access to the tools of production that they need.
She owns 67 hectares of land which she was fortunate to have inherited from her late father. On this land, she plants maize, soya beans and ground nuts. In addition she established an orange orchid and also grows a variety of vegetables for household consumption and sale.
“I farming seriously as a business in 2001 with 5kg of seed and 2 bags of fertilizers which I got as a loan from LIMA Bank…from the profit I made in re-invested and I bought 4 bags of fertilizer and 10kg of seed,” Mrs. Mubiana.
Fast forward to today 2010, she used her growing income to hire trucks and became a local transporter of FISP inputs. Today, she owns 2 canters and 1 truck of her own. Her new and improved standard of farming has confronted her with a new challenge of gender insecurities when a woman excels above her male counterparts.
“The men are jealous of me – when the President came here [to flag off 2019/2020 FISP in the Province] the men were accusing me of receiving money from the President to spread PF [propaganda] and that’s why I have money to buy all the things you have,” Mrs. Mubiana lamented.
What has exacerbated the situation is the fact that she is an icon of success in Chikankata and as such her farm is a preferred venue for field days and other agricultural learning events.
Her success that is rooted in the fact that she owns her own land, had access to credit in her initial farming stages; and she has control over her farming choices is perfect proof that as the 2020 International Women’s Day theme goes – An Equal World is an Enabled World – a perfect summary of the importance of closing the gender gap in agriculture.
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