Empowering Freetown’s women farmers

Cadzow, Hana; Binns, Tony

doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2016.06.010

Cited by 23 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Second, insufficient government support was a major barrier to urban cultivation [25,[29][30][31][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. Indeed, unclear urban policies on land use led to small or even the absence of investments as farmers forgo the risk of losing their relatively small income if authorities would claim the land and destroy their crops.…”

Section: • Barriersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What Constraints the Expansion of Urban Agriculture in Benin?

2020

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Propelled by rapid urbanization, city administrations in low- and middle-income countries face a raft of challenges to secure food and nutrition for its poor urban dwellers. Urban agriculture (UA) seems a viable intervention to address urban food insecurity, however, experience has shown that urban gardens do not expand at the expected rate. Tackling this issue requires a deeper understanding of the main constraints that block UA expansion. Benin is not an exception; the country witnesses a breathtaking growth of its main cities that is in synchronization with a mounting food insecurity. Our research aims, therefore, to identify the main constraints for the expansion of UA in Benin, and adopt a three-pronged approach combined with a systematic literature review, a survey held among experienced urban gardeners, and in-depth interviews with stakeholders. Altogether, the synthesis shows a predominance of five main constraints: lack of land and tenure insecurity, insufficient government support, restricted market access, limited access to productive factors, and inequality issues. Specifically, while the review showed that most barriers are linked and could be tackled together, the survey indicated a political unwillingness which in our in-depth interviews is explained by the unperceived benefits of investing in UA and the lack of enforcement of urban development plans. We suggest that Beninese authorities and academics move in synchronization where the former coordinates the planning of urban gardens and the latter provides evidence to trigger public and private investments in UA. The findings could be the basis for further research on UA in West Africa and the wider continent.

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Section: • Barriersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Third, restricted market access was a constraint for urban farmers [25,27,35,38,[42][43][44][45]. Market participation was difficult to urban farmers who were located far away from markets when transport costs make the commercialization of produce uninteresting.…”

Section: • Barriersmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Constraints the Expansion of Urban Agriculture in Benin?

2020

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“…Women's access to agricultural inputs is often more limited than for men, partly because they practice subsistence, rather than commercial agriculture, and therefore have less cash to spend. As shown by Cadzow and Binns (2016) in the case of urban agriculture in Sierra Leone, women often bear the main responsibility for paying household costs such as food, schooling and health expenses. This means that men have more possibilities for taking risks in their entrepreneurial endeavours.…”

Section: Control Over Capital; the Opportunity Of Small Livestockmentioning

confidence: 99%

Food production and gender relations in multifunctional landscapes: a literature review

Westholm

Ostwald

2019

Agroforest Syst

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High expectations are put to multifunctional land use systems that they can provide solutions to the increasing global demand for land and food. In this literature review, we ask whether multifunctional landscapes hold specific opportunities for women in enhancing food production and security in a context of gender inequality guided by a framework of access to productive resources and commercialisation. We review 104 scientific articles dealing with food production and security in a range of multifunctional land use systems across Africa, Asia and Latin America, including agroforestry, homegardens, livestock systems and urban agriculture. We find that the specific role of a landscape's multifunctionality for women's opportunities to enhance food security, is rarely explicitly examined in scientific literature. Our review shows that in a multifunctional setting, the products controlled by women are often secondary and far from markets, and therefore they risk being ignored in decision-making or by policy makers. Further, efforts to increase the value of traditionally ''female products'' risk having adverse effects on women's empowerment, in cases where powerful actors take over all or parts of the value chain, or appropriate the benefits. To remove these barriers traditional gender roles have to change. However, the instability of gender relations can also work in women's favour in a multifunctional landscape where several products and production systems exist, providing opportunities to claim new roles or resources, especially in the context of changing external circumstances, such as urbanization, a shift from pastoralism to sedentary livelihoods, or an expansion of the monetary economy.

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“…Several scholars established that female farmers have much lower yields than male farmers (Larson et al, 2015;Cadzow, 2016). This could be trace to the fact that women have limited access to productive resources such as land, credit etc.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

2016

IJAPR

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This study examined gender differences in the adoption of fertilizer among smallholder farmers in cocoa based farming system of Southwestern Nigeria. Specifically, it described the socioeconomic characteristics of the farmers by gender; determined the rate of adoption of fertilizer; and analysed the factors affecting the rate of adoption of fertilizer. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select 200 respondents, comprising 147 males and 53 females. Data were collected on socioeconomic characteristics such as age, household size, years of schooling, farm size access to credit, and fertilizer use among others. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and probit regression model. Descriptive statistics revealed significant difference between male and female farmers for age, years of formal education, years of farming experience, and farm size. The adoption rate of fertilizer was low with a significant difference between male (37.4%) and female (28.3%) farmers. The determinants of adoption of fertilizer by both male and female farmers were years of formal education, while there were gender specific variations. The significant determinants of fertilizer adoption among male farmers are age, farm size and access to credit while membership of an association was significant for female famers. It was concluded that strategies aimed at improving male farmer's adoption of fertilizer m consider age, farm size and access to credit, female targeted programmes should take membership of association into consideration. In general, considering the years of formal education of both male and female farmers will enhance fertilizer adoption in cocoa based farming systems.

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Empowering Freetown’s women farmers

Cited by 23 publications

References 34 publications

What Constraints the Expansion of Urban Agriculture in Benin?

What Constraints the Expansion of Urban Agriculture in Benin?

Food production and gender relations in multifunctional landscapes: a literature review

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