Module 4: Gender, Agriculture and Food Security - Gender Climate

14. Women receive only 5 percent of agricultural extension services worldwide.
Time constraints and cultural reservations may also hinder women from
participating in extension activities, such as field days, outside their village
or within mixed groups. In most countries, the share of female smallholders
who can access credit is 5 to 10 percentage points lower than that of male
smallholders. The reason for this is partly that women often do not have
the necessary collateral. As noted above (paragraph 5b), many countries
have laws and established legal practices that discriminate against women,
including on access to credit. Access to credit and insurance are important for
accumulating and retaining other assets.
15. Women are much less likely to use purchased inputs such as fertilizers and
improved seeds or to make use of mechanical tools and equipment. In many
countries, women are only one half as likely as men to use fertilizers. Studies
in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Nigeria and Zambia showed that, due to differential
control over resources, women were at a disadvantage when men and women
grew the same crop on individual plots. Most inputs, such as labour and
fertilizer, went to the men’s plots.
Group exercise (see Appendix: Learning Tools)
Summary questions
• What is food security
• How do women contribute to food security
• What are some of the gender based constraints that women face in the
agricultural sector
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Gender and Climate Change Capacity development series Afric a
Training module 4 Gender, agriculture and food security