Press forward to gender parity in access to resources for inclusive growth

By Mildred Barungi, PhD

As Uganda joins the rest of the world to celebrate the 2018 International Women's Day under the theme "press for progress", there is a strong call-to-action to press forward to gender inclusiveness in access to factors of agricultural production.

Agriculture can be an important engine of growth and poverty reduction. But the sector is underperforming in Uganda in part because women, who are often a crucial resource in agriculture and the rural economy, face constraints that reduce their productivity.

Although more women (82%) than men (66%) are engaged in agricultural production, they control less than 20% of the outputs. Women continue to disproportionately experience challenges in accessing factors of production, particularly land, credit, extension services and productivity-enhancing inputs such as seed of improved crop varieties, fertiliser, and pesticides.

Usually men dominate ownership and control of land, the primary factor of agricultural production. Women's direct access to land through purchase or inheritance is often limited. Commonly, women have indirect access to land in terms of use rights acquired through kinship relationships and their status as wives, mothers, sisters or daughters.

Only about 25% females have individual owner rights over land parcel holdings compared to 32% of their male counterparts. It should be noted that the agricultural sector strategic plan intends to promote commercialisation of prioritised agricultural commodities, especially among smallholder farmers given that most of them (about 69%) are still stuck in subsistence production.

The plan to promote agricultural commercialisation is indeed justifiable because commercialisation is one of the critical drivers of poverty reduction and welfare improvement. However, this plan might not see the light of day without addressing gender disparity in access to land. Women need to have secure land tenure such that they can invest in sustainable agriculture production without fear of being cheated or evicted.

Further, there is gender disparity in access to credit in favour of men. The percentage of females who seek and obtain credit for agricultural purposes (11.5%) is much smaller than that of their male counterparts (15.3%). This means that women are less likely to afford costly investments in agriculture (such as irrigation facilities and fertiliser) compared to men.

As such, in the face of declining soil fertility coupled with disastrous weather extremes (particularly drought), women disproportionately suffer losses in production and productivity. Therefore, there is a strong call-to-action to increase credit availability and affordability to all Ugandans but more so for women. This will help to relax the cash constraint that frequently impedes investment in agricultural productivity- enhancing technologies.

Extension services provide information on new improved technologies, which result in significant yield increases. There are public, private and other non-state actors who provide agricultural extension services to farmers but Government (MAAIF) has the mandate to ensure that farmers access the right extension services on a timely and sustainable manner.

Although access to extension services is generally still limited, it is lowest among females. The agriculture sector performance in recent years in terms of production, productivity, exports and food and nutrition security has not been as expected due to a number of challenges including slow adoption of technological innovations particularly amongst women farmers.

Thus, increasing access to extension overall but more so for women is bound to lead to increased adoption of improved technologies in agriculture. Currently, disproportionately fewer women than men access and use seed of improved crop varieties, fertilisers, herbicides, and pesticides, among other recommended technologies for sustainable agriculture. Efforts by the Government to mainstream gender are recognised, but so far they have not yet fully translated into equitable access to resources.

Thus, attaining gender parity in access to factors of agricultural production remains of paramount importance and is expected to ensure that women benefit from their labour and enhance their contribution towards inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction.

The writer is a Research Fellow at the Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC)