Hawassa University

School of Environment, Gender and Development

Department of Agribusiness & Value Chain Management

Seminar paper on
Women issues in Ethiopia Agriculture

Submitted to: Wro. Asefach Hailu

Submitted by: Teshale Endalamaw ABVM/012/06

10th August 2014

Table of content
TABLE OF CONTENT....................................................................I
BACKGROUND...........................................................................1
FEMINIZATION OF AGRICULTURE.................................................2
THE AGRICULTURE SECTOR IN ETHIOPIA......................................2
WOMEN AND AGRICULTURE........................................................3
WOMEN ISSUES IN ETHIOPIAN AGRICULTURE...............................4
1.

Division of labour...................................................................................5

2.

Income management..............................................................................6

3.

Land Tenure........................................................................................... 6

4.

Extension and Training Services..............................................................7

5.

Access to Credit......................................................................................7

6.

Irrigation and Systems............................................................................7

7.

Livestock ownership...............................................................................7

8.

Agro-processing.....................................................................................8

NATIONAL POLICY ON WOMEN AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK.8

National Women Policy..................................................................................8
Policy implementation structure....................................................................9

EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE...............................................................10
1.

Access to Land and Credit.....................................................................10

2.

Access to livestock and other resources.................................................10

3.

Access to Extension, Technology and Agriculture Research Services........10

WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE VALUE CHAIN.....................................11

REFERENCE.............................................................................12

Background
The literal meaning of Agriculture is production that relies essentially on the growth and nurturing of
plants and animals, especially for food, usually with land as an important input; farming. Globally, about
4.8 billion hectares of land are used for agriculture. Historically, agricultural growth has been the way
out of poverty for developed countries.

More recently, this has been true in China and India where

agriculture led economic growth has reduced poverty. The World Development Report (WDR) states that
GDP growth generated in agriculture is at least twice as effective in reducing poverty as growth
generated by other sectors (FAO, 1985). According to World Bank (2008), agriculture contributes to
economic development in many ways (i) as an economic activity and leading sector for economic
growth, (ii) as a source of livelihood, (iii) as a provider of environmental services and (iv) as a
contributing factor to peace and stability by providing food to the growing population at an affordable
price. Ethiopia is the landlocked country found in the Horn of Africa officially known the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE). The federation is composed of nine regional stats and two city
administrative counsels comprised with more than 500 districts and 15,000 kebles 1. The total population
was estimated 85 million, women accounts 50% (World Bank 2013, cited UNDP 2011) and make the
country is the second populous in Sub-sharan Africa. Even though the country is the oldest in civilization
still the country is one of the poorest in the World. Poverty eradication is the core development objective
of the Ethiopian Government while rapid economic growth is a key strategy to this objective. This rapid
economic growth has to be broad-based, equitable and sustainable. For Ethiopian Economic growth and
development the agriculture sector takes the lions share of the total GDP, in foreign currency earnings
and in employment creation. The other two sectors, industry and services, are dependent on the
performance of agriculture, which provides raw materials, generates foreign currency for the importation
of essential inputs and feeds the fast growing population. During 2011/12, Ethiopias economy, as
measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 8.5 percent. Agriculture 2, Industry and Services
grew by 4.9 percent, 13.6 percent and 11.1 percent respectively. But in terms of sectorial distribution of
GDP, Agriculture, Industry and Services contributed 45.6 percent, 44 percent and 11 percent to GDP
respectively (MOFED 2013). Subsistence agriculture is the main source of food and income in many rural
communities throughout the world, especially sub-Saharan Africa. Similarly the sector, in Ethiopia, is
based on subsistence farm households (HH) whose modes of life and operation have remained
unchanged for centuries. According to the national accounts data, the share of livestock sub-sector in
the GDP was 9.8 percent and 9.5 percent in 2010/11 and 2011/12 fiscal years, respectively. On the
other hand the crop production sub-sector accounted for 31.5 percent of GDP in 2010/11 and 30.4
percent in 2011/12.
Many literatures revealed that women play a triple role in agricultural households: productive,
reproductive, and social. The

productive

role, performed by both men and women, focuses on

economic activities; the reproductive role, almost exclusively done by women, includes child bearing and
rearing; household maintenance, including cooking, fetching water, and fuel- wood; and the social role
or community building, often dominated by women, which includes arranging funerals, weddings, and
social events. About 70% of the agricultural workers, 80% of food producers, and 10% of those who
process basic foodstuffs are women and they also undertake 60 to 90% of the rural marketing; thus
making up more than two-third of the workforce in agricultural production (FAO, 1985). In Africa, 80%
1 The lowest administration structure in Ethiopia
2 Agriculture comprise livestock sub-sector and crop sub-sector

of the agricultural production comes from small farmers, who are mostly rural women. Women comprise
the largest percentage of the workforce in the agricultural sector, but do not have access and control
over all land and productive resources. In Ethiopia, studies conducted by many authors on rural women
revealed that, women represent approximately 50 percent of the total population and account for 70
percent of the household food production. Their share in the total agricultural labour force is
considerable where about 48 percent of the agricultural labour force is driven from female family
members.

Feminization of agriculture
In feminist economics, the Feminization of Agriculture refers to the measurable increase of women's
participation in the agricultural sector, particularly in the developing world. The phenomenon started
during the 1960s with increasing shares over time. In the 1990s, during liberalization, the phenomenon
became more pronounced and negative effects appeared in the rural female population. Afterwards,
agricultural markets became gendered institutions, affecting men and women differently. The term has
also been applied to other phenomena, including increasing shares of women in the agricultural
workforce, male outmigration from rural areas, decreasing women's opportunities in agricultural
productivity, and lower rural pay due to skill exclusions. Activists have argued that the trend is
dangerous and leads to food insecurity. Feminization of agriculture refers to womens increasing
participation in the agricultural labor force, whether as independent producers, as unremunerated family
workers, or as agricultural wage workers. Specifically, feminization of agriculture entails:
1.

An increase in womens participation rates in the agricultural sector, either as self-employed or

as agricultural wage workers; in other words, an increase in the percentage of women who are
economically active in rural areas.

2.

An increase in the percentage of women in the agricultural labor force relative to men, either
because more women are working and/or because fewer men are working in agriculture.

According to the FAO, while the proportion of the labor force working in agricultural declined over the
1990s, the proportion of women working in agriculture increased, particularly in developing countries. In
some regions such as Africa and Asia, almost half of the labor force is women. This trend has been called
the feminization of agriculture. This feminization of agriculture is caused by increased "casualization" of
work, unprofitable crop production and distress migration of men "for higher casual work in agriculture
and non-agriculture sectors", leaving women to take up low paid casual work in agriculture.

The agriculture sector in Ethiopia

The agriculture sector is critically important both for overall economic performance and poverty
alleviation of the country. Because of this Government has demonstrated strong commitment to the
sector through allocation of more than 15% of the total budget, although a significant portion of this is
spent on the Disaster Risk Management and Food Security (DRMFS) program. In addition, the sector
remains dominated by subsistence, low input, low output, rain fed farming system. About 11.7 million
Smallholder households account for approximately 95 percent of agricultural GDP and 85 percent of

employment. In the agricultural sector, Ethiopia has a comprehensive and consistent set of policies and
strategies, which reflects the importance of the sector in the Nations development aspirations.
Agricultural

Development

Led Industrialization (ADLI) is a central pillar of economic policy in the

recently completed Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) and
the soon-to-be launched Five Year Growth and Transformation Plan (FYGTP). The following are key
features of the sector;

The agricultural sector greatly influences the economic performance of the country;

The agricultural sector is dominated by a subsistence, low input-low output, rain fed farming
system;

The agricultural sector has performed strongly over most of the last decade, but there is still
substantial potential to improve productivity and production;

Government has demonstrated strong commitment to agriculture and rural development

through allocations of more than 15 per cent of the total budget;

Droughts periodically reverse agricultural sector performance gains with devastating effects on
household food security and poverty levels;

Gender disparities significantly impede womens empowerment.

Women and agriculture

Many authors agreed that, women's role in the agricultural sector increased during the 1960s and has
continued to grow. Women have been increasingly counted as heads of household, running their own
farms without male assistance. These households are often poorer than their male counterparts. Their
plot sizes are usually smaller and have less access to other productive resources, like education, tools,
and seeds, something termed investment poverty. Women agricultural workers are also less likely to
have social connections, like credit and market networks. In the EU, agriculture is the seventh largest
employer of women (3%). However, in Greece about 38% women (of all family workers in agriculture)
are employed in agriculture. In Portugal, over 50% of the agricultural workforce is female. Throughout
the South Asian region, women account for about 39 percent of the agricultural workforce, working as
managers of land to agricultural laborers. In India, in overall farm production, womens average
contribution is estimated at 55% to 66% ...In the Indian Himalayas a pair of bullocks works 1064 hours,
a man 1212 hours and a woman 3485 hours in a year on a once hectare farm, a figure that illustrates
womens significant contribution to agricultural production. In China, women constitute about 70 percent
of the agricultural labor force and perform more than 70 percent of farm labor...the general pattern isthe poorer the area, the higher women's contribution, largely as subsistence farmers who farm small
pieces of land, often less than 0.2 hectares (Shiva FAO, 1991). This indicates that as women are the
backbone of the development of rural and national economies. They comprise 43% of the worlds
agricultural labor force, which rises to 70% in some countries. The agricultural system in Sub-Saharan
Africa is 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.
In Ethiopia, the Agriculture Development Led Industrialization (ADLI) Strategy was initiated in 1994 and
gave emphasis for the agriculture sector to fuel the growth of other sectors of the economy. The
strategy was relied on increasing employment in the rural areas, increased productivity especially for
small-scale farmers, improved social and marketing
oriented

infrastructure,

and

tapping

into

the

export

markets. Even though in the strategy gave high relevance to female farmers who are

responsible for household subsistence, there is little attention given to mainstreaming of women farmers
concerns or the impact of gender relations in the subsistence farming sector. Women and men face
different constraints in the agriculture sector, mainly because of their different access to resources.
Farm sizes for female heads of households are usually smaller than those under male headed
households, and moreover women tend to suffer from landlessness more than men. Furthermore,
women tend to use more labour on their plots which increases their expenses for land management and
eventually reduces their income. While the constitution guarantees gender equality and supports
affirmative action, on average, women have fewer years of schooling and heavier workloads than men.
They perform a significant portion of farm work but tend to be excluded from control of farm income and
inheritance of property. Women also suffer disproportionately from environmental degradation as they
have to walk longer distances to collect water and firewood. The lack of draught animal power tends to
intensify their vulnerability. They also shoulder a greater burden of rural poverty because of their
vulnerable socio-economic position. The incidence of poverty in woman-headed households is also
higher. The following table show the gander based difference in Agriculture.

Table 1: Gender Based Differences in Agriculture

Land

Land title and tenure tend to be vested in men, either by legal condition or by socio-cultural
norms. Land reform and resettlement have tended to reinforce this bias against tenure for
women. Land shortage is common among women. Women farm smaller and more dispersed
plots than men and are less likely to hold title, secure tenure, or the same rights to use,
improve, or dispose of land.

Extension

Women farmers have less contact with extension services than men, especially where malefemale contact is culturally restricted. Extension is often provided by men agents to men
farmers on the erroneous assumption that the message will trickle across to women. In fact,
agricultural knowledge is transferred inefficiently or not at all from husband to wife. Also, the
message tends to ignore the unique workload, responsibilities, and constraints facing women
farmers.
Women generally use lower levels of technology because of difficulties in access, cultural
restrictions on use, or regard for womens crops and livestock as low research priorities.
Women have less access to formal financial services because of high transaction costs, limited
education and mobility, social and cultural barriers, the nature of their businesses, and
collateral requirements, such as land title, they cant meet.
Women face far greater time constraints than men. They may spend less time on farm work
but work longer total hours on productive and household work and paid and unpaid work, due
to gender-based division of labor in child care and household responsibilities.
Women are less mobile than men, both because of their child care and household
responsibilities and because of sociocultural norms that limit their mobility.
Women are less educated in parts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Illiteracy hampers their
access to and ability to understand technical information. Worldwide, women have less access
to education and training in agriculture.

Technology
Finance

Time

Mobility
Education
and Training

Source: the World bank 2008

Women issues in Ethiopian Agriculture

In Ethiopia, women constitute over half of the total population. In addition to their number, as it is
indicated above the role of women is critical within the household and outside of the household and in
the development context. However, women suffer from socio-cultural discrimination and have fewer
opportunities compared to men for personal growth, education, employment etc. There is no equity in
the distribution of power and decision-making between men and women at all levels of the government
structure and local institutions. In addition to the above mentioned constraints women, including girls
has been subjected to rape, abduction, early marriage and other forms of harmful practices. Women are
more vulnerable to STDs including HIV/AIDS infection, due to biological, socio-cultural, and economic
factors. Women in Ethiopia are essentially protected by the country's law, not only in political, civil and
economic terms, but also with regard to access to natural resources, including land. Article 35 of the
Ethiopian Constitution (1995) reiterates principles of equality of access to economic opportunities,
including the right to equality in employment and land ownership. Women in Ethiopia are less
involved in farming activities than in many other African countries. By tradition they are not allowed
to plough with oxen although they do planting, weeding and harvesting. All these factors aggravate
their situation and make them more vulnerable than their male counterpart.

1. Division of labour
Agricultural labor can be unpaid (such as on-farm family labor), paid-in-kind (such as barter or labor
exchange), self-employed (such as marketing of ones own produce), or wage labor. To the extent that
women are concentrated in both unpaid and casual labor, their efforts in agriculture are grossly
underrepresented. The 2008 World Development Report estimated agricultural labor from multiple
country surveys and identified key trends; some of these trends are summarized below.

There is declining agricultural labor

More women than men work in agriculture. Data show that when both self-employment and
wage labor are considered, women provide more employment in agriculture than men in many
regions

The number of waged women workers in agriculture is rapidly increasing because of

globalization, high-value agricultural production, and the casualization of labor. One stimulus
for the growth in womens agricultural wage labor has been the industrialization of agriculture,
particularly the growth of high-value agriculture production and agro- processing for export.
Vegetable production can require up to five times more labor than cereal production.

The following categories of agricultural labor are considered part of the informal sector: (1) agricultural
laborerspouse or other family members, generally unpaid; (2) wage laborer, for cash or in-kind
compensation, on small, family-owned agricultural land; (3) casual wage laborers on registered
agribusiness; and (4) seasonal wage laborer on registered agribusiness. In developing countries, and in
some industrial countries, almost all agricultural labor could be considered informal.

In agriculture there is a division of responsibility of tasks. Women are assigned the small tasks such as
weeding, storing and processing, hand-harvest of some cash-crops; culturally, it is not acceptable for
women to sow or plant. Men will do the heavy tasks such as clearing and preparing the land usually
involving some form of technology, and they will harvest. Women are also involved in growing
subsistence crops and vegetables for household consumption.

2. Income management
Due to division of labour, men do marketing of cash crops while women will market surplus subsistence
crops. Findings reveal that income from sales of mens crops is used mainly to purchase agriculture
inputs, large livestock or draught power, and for large household equipment.

Income

derived

from

sales of womens produce is used to buy small household equipment, food necessities, clothing,
and to meet community obligations. Mens and womens income are shared for health and education
expenses of the family. According to FAO, the rapid modernization of agriculture and the introduction of
new technologies, such as those that characterized the green revolution, have benefited the wealthy
more than the poor, and men more than women. This premise is also supported by the ILO, which has
found that new techniques in agriculture, particularly those involving commercialization, "often shift
economic control, employment and profit from women to men". The diversion of income from women
causes increased suffering for families because studies have found that, in general, income controlled by
women benefits families more than income controlled by men.

3. Land Tenure
Land is considered as the primary means for generating the livelihood for most of the poor living in rural
areas. It is generally argued that access to land will affect not only productive outcomes but also the
ability of the poor to access credits, make investments, and benefit from the rule of the law in
general (WBI, 2003). There are three mechanisms, for both women and men, for obtaining rights to
land: (i) through social and kinship relations at the local level, (ii) on the land market, or (iii) from the
state. These mechanisms are embedded in institutions that create, modify, and influence land tenure
systems: sociocultural institutions, state institutions, and market economy. There are four categories of
legal rights to land that affect women. These are (1) the rights women hold in marriage (shared tenure);
(2) the right to land when the marital household changes through polygamy, divorce, or abandonment;
(3) the right to receive land through inheritance; and (4) the right to purchase land. These are affected
by both formal and customary law. In Ethiopia, land rights are among the major development
challenges. Land is the most significant livelihood-sustaining asset for the vast majority of the
population. Understandably, land rights have been and continue to be one of the most contentious
political issues facing the country.
1.

Prior to the agrarian reform of 1975, the land tenure system and the concomitant production
relations were heterogeneous. In most parts of the country, peasants gained access to land
through inheritance or through corporate groups consisting of individuals tracing their descent
from a certain ancestor. A predominant portion of the land in both the south and the north of

the country were controlled by political and social elites who had been granted land by the
imperial regime, mainly in return for military and administrative services. During this time
women had the right of inheritance and the ruling class women received land as gifts and or
were able to purchase land.
2.

The land reform launched in 1975 by the military regime initially perceived as means of
combating poverty and ushering in economic and social justice, ended up accelerating poverty.
Land was distributed by family size and registered under male heads of households. By using
the household as the unit of allocation, the Proclamation assumed that households were uniform
and thus failed to take intra-household distributional relations into account. Consequently, most
women failed to obtain rights to possess land. The situation was worse for women in
polygamous unions, divorced women and those who came of age after the initial land
apportionment.

3.

During the transitional period, 1991-1994, there was a lack of clear legal and policy directives
on land ownership. This lack was addressed by the adoption of the Constitution in 1994. The
new Constitution retained state ownership of rural and urban land, as well as of all natural
resources. The Constitution states that women have equal rights with men with respect to
access, use, administration and transfer of land. They shall also enjoy equal treatment in the
inheritance of property.

4. Extension and Training Services

Failure to consider the specic situation and needs of women (e.g. nance, training and other supports)
as an integral part of the overall extension programs have been a major obstacle for accessing extension
services as equally as men. Moreover, the fact that the extension services have been predominantly
staffed by male DAs has had huge implications for the active participation of rural women especially in
areas where women cannot easily interact with men due to cultural and/or religious restrictions.

5. Access to Credit
Women are not willing to approach credit institution due to the fact that they should travel long
distances to get credit and make repayments. Because of this, although the sum is too small to purchase
agriculture inputs and is limited to petty trading, and informal sector activities, or are enough to meet
some personal social obligations, they involved in community based revolving credit and savings groups;
that were much more convenient to them in terms of the distance, the ease of access, and the fact that
they dealt with people from the community. Agriculture credit requires some form of guarantee of
repayment and since women do not own either the land, equipment, or the produce it is more difficult
for them to qualify for a loan.

6. Irrigation and Systems

Even though they can contribute their labour to transport some construction materials and putting in
place light equipments since they cannot involved in heavy tasks during irrigation facilities construction
they are not represented in Water User Associations and are not considered to be part of the training in
operations and maintenance of the facilities. Nevertheless, findings indicate that while women tend to be

less mobile and do not migrate, for economic reasons, as often as men, they are better suited to
maintain and manage such facilities.

7. Livestock ownership
Generally there is a division of ownership of livestock, where large animals are considered belonging to
the men and small ones to the women. However, both men and women have different priorities with
regards to livestock. For closed livestock, womens labour is used for cleaning of the animal shelters or
space as well as the milking activity.

8. Agro-processing
The majority of women in rural agriculture households are involved in some form of processing of farm
produce, mainly for home consumption. Their major constraint is accessibility in terms of roads and
transport, equipment for processing of foods, preservation and storage techniques and knowledge, and
diversifying the types of foods processed.

National Policy on Women and Institutional Framework

National Women Policy
It is quite clear that womens role in agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa is critical. However, it is often
neglected by the households and society in general. The impediments to women's empowerment
encompass their lack of access to decision making processes, their low participation in local governance,
as well as their limited access to technology inputs and credit. Land tenure is another stumbling block to
women's full access and control of land and the agricultural output. These impediments to womens
empowerment are also obstacles to agricultural development and food security in this region.
The Government of Ethiopia made efforts to reduce the gender disparity and bring about gender equality
between men and women. Ethiopian women, as women in many countries in the world, are in
disadvantaged positions and are vulnerable to various forms of discrimination and violence. Recognizing
the disadvantaged position of women in the country, the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) has put in place
policies and initiatives to promote womens empowerment. To this end, Ethiopia ratified the Convention
on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1981 and has pledged
commitment to promote gender mainstreaming in all policies and programs through the 1995 Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action. The government also produced the National Policy on Women
(1993) aimed at institutionalizing the political, economic and social rights of women by creating an
appropriate structure in government offices and institutions. A National Action Plan for Gender Equality
(NAP-GE-2006) has been produced as an integral part of PASDEP. The goal of the NAP-GE is to assist
women to achieve gender equality through active and empowered participation in all development
programs. It also works towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). MDG Goal
number three is specifically designated to promote gender equality and empower women.

In spite of the existence of some gender sensitive legislation, polices and directives, implementation has
been challenging due to variations in regional contexts, limited capacities, lack of political will, paucity of
sex-disaggregated data, high illiteracy rate, deep-rooted cultural beliefs and practices and lack of
resources. Thus, the national laws and policies are the basis for creating an enabling environment for
women across all sectors. In response to this, several sector programs issued policies, laws and
regulations with similar development objectives. Among the sector polices which have explicitly
recognized the situations of rural women are:

The Health Policy (1993)

The Population Policy of Ethiopia (1993)

The Education and Training Policy (1994)

The Policy of Rural Energy (1994)

The National Environmental Policy (1997)

The Federal Land Administration Proclamation of the 1997, which conrms the equal rights of
women with respect to the use and administration and control of land

The Ethiopian Water Resource Management Policy (1998)

The Federal Civil Service Proclamation of 2002, which allows preferential treatment to be given
during employment

Ethiopia has signed several conventions and protocols such as:

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 1979

The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995) and the Beijing Platform for Action

The major UN world conferences of the 1990s, particularly the Environment Conference (Rio de
Janeiro, 1992), the Human Rights Conference (Vienna, 1993)

The Population and Development Conference (Cairo, 1994)

The Social Development Summit (Copenhagen, 1995)

The

focus

on

the

integration

of

women

was

also

reected

in

the

Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs) endorsed in the Beijing platform for Action

Policy implementation structure

The National Policy on Women aims to institutionalize the political and socio-economic rights of women
by creating appropriate structures in government institutions. As a result, measures were put in place

to enhance the implementation capacity of the NPW. In 1992 the Women's Affairs Office was created
within the Prime Minister's Office and mandated to coordinate and facilitate conditions to promote
gender equality in areas of development. The declaration of the first National Policy on Women in 1993
provided a framework within which Government's commitment to empower women can be channeled.
The NPW highlights the following issues as areas of intervention to achieve womens empowerment and
gender equity in Ethiopia:
1.

addressing discriminatory practices and mainstreaming womens issues in existing laws,

regulations, customary practices and enabling a conducive environment for women to
participate in decision making structures;

2.

coordinate and incorporate womens issues in all government programmes and policies as well
as at institutional levels;

3.

work towards changing discriminatory attitudes in society against women and girls; and

4.

promote research and awareness raising in all areas concerning womens development and
gender equity.

The Policy also recommended the establishment of womens development machinery at the respective
sectoral ministries in the form of Womens Affairs Departments (WADs), the Regional Womens Bureaus
(RWBs) at the regional administration level, and womens coordination and desk officers at the
respective Zonal and Woreda levels.

Empirical evidence
As indicated above the majority of rural women have been barred from having equal access and control
over the fundamental resources such as land, credit, livestock, agricultural inputs and basic facilities and
services. All of these have brought negative implications on the economic condition and position of
women. These are supported by different researches; for example:

1. Access to Land and Credit

Many study revealed that Ethiopian women have low access to land and other productive assets. In this
regard, the 2009 Ethiopian Statistical Hand Book report shows that out of the total land holders, only
18.6 percent were found to be women. In addition Ethiopian men control agricultural assets far more
than women do which are linked to credit and agricultural inputs. Many nations have also modified land
and property laws and regulations so as to guarantee womens equal property and inheritance rights. For
example; to remove discriminatory clauses in codes applying to family (marriage, divorce, and marital
property) and inheritance most Latin American nations passed legal reforms during the 1980s and
1990s. in addition to this to recognize and give women equal land rights explicitly they also modified
land allocation laws and regulations.

10

2. Access to livestock and other resources

In Ethiopia, in connection to access to livestock only 20 percent of female-headed household owned
oxen as compared to 67 percent for male-headed households. Even in the pastoral community due to
the culture women have access to animals with big value but not having the right to sell. In some areas
women mostly have access to, but not control over cash crops like coffee, chat, wheat, barley and teff
(MOFED, 2006/10).

3. Access to Extension, Technology and Agriculture Research Services

Studies also show that women have had minimal access to the extension services when compared to
men. In 2011/12, the total number of smallholder farmers, pastoralists and semi-pastoralists who have
been benefiting from agricultural extension service has reached to 10.5 million. Of the total beneficiaries
women accounts 30 percent (MORAD, 2013).
In 2007 World Bank conducted a thematic study, in 15 African countries, on agricultural education and
training (World Bank 2007). And the fining revealed the following: In Benin, for instance, 20 percent of
the students in the Colleges of Technical Agricultural Education was women. In Ethiopias 25 agricultural
technical training centres, only 11 percent of enrolled students and 9 percent of graduated students in
2005 were women. Similar gender imbalances appeared at the university level, in the College of
Agriculture, Hamaraya University School of Graduate Studies, where women graduates made up less
than 3 percent of graduates between 1979 and 2003. In Cameroons University of Dchang, 22 percent
of students in the Faculty of Agronomy and Agricultural Sciences were women, but almost half of these
(44 percent) were concentrated in the Faculty of Economics and Sociology (that is, not in agricultural
sciences).

Women in Agriculture Value chain

As many findings revealed women play an important role in all areas of the agricultural sector. From
farming, through transport, wholesale, retail to the consumer; women are present throughout the
marketing chain. Women increasingly supply national and international markets with traditional and
high-value produce, but compared to men, women farmers and entrepreneurs face a number of
disadvantages, including lower mobility, less access to training, less access to market information, and
less access to productive resources. This means that women are significantly excluded from markets. So
thus, bringing women into markets requires targeted analysis and program interventions.
A value chain incorporates the full range of activities required to bring a product or service from
conception to production, delivery to consumers, and final disposal after use (Kaplinsky and Morris
2002). The value chain approach strengthens business linkages between producer groups, service
providers, and other actors, such as processors and importers, rather than focusing exclusively on farm
interventions. Value chains vary in complexity and in the range of participants they draw in. Export value
chains tend to be more complex than local chains in terms of the knowledge and technical facilities
required, because special processing and packaging are common. The value chain concept is a useful
analytic tool to understand a series of production and postproduction activitieswhether it is a basic
crop, such as vegetables, or a highly processed good, such as cotton textile or canned tunaand the

11

enterprises and individuals who are involved. Frequently the knowledge and other information embodied
in the different functions of a value chain are gender specific. In some cases women or men are entirely
responsible for a whole value chain or significant aspects of it. In Madagascar, for example, men produce
honey and wax, whereas women are largely responsible for silkworm production. Hives are located high
in trees and harvested by night (climbing at night is not considered a suitable activity for women). On
the other hand, silk production and weaving can be performed at home, enabling women to run these
enterprises more easily. In value chain marketing women can involve in three ways of value adding
through (i) an upgrade of their current role in a value chain, (ii) moving up to additional roles in value
chains (for example, into processing), finding new products and becoming dominant members of a new
value chain, and (iii) increasing efficiency in current interaction in the value chain
On the other hand agribusiness enterprises have gender-differentiated occupations: women do the
labor- intensive tasks such as weeding and pruning in the fields, selection and cutting in processing, and
sorting and wrapping in packing. Men do the tasks that entail strength such as lifting crates and
construction of greenhouses, or that involve machinery such as driving tractors and trucks, applying
pesticides, and maintaining equipment. Womens work is more likely to be considered unskilled and
women are less likely to receive training and acquire skills that make them eligible for higher-paid work
(Dolan and Sorby 2003: 29-31). After reviewing numerous case studies in Latin America and Africa, Katz
(2003), Deere (2005: 30-37) and Dolan and Sorby (2003: 29-33) draw these conclusions regarding
non- traditional or high-value export agriculture:

women are employed for the labor-intensive tasks

women are generally earn lower wages than men and are more likely to be paid at piece rate

workers, including women workers, in packaging and processing plants earn more than field
workers and have better working conditions; work is nonetheless hard, often involving long
hours of standing, and long work days during peak seasons

women are the major supplier of temporary, seasonal, and casual labor and men occupy the
majority of permanent jobs as well as administrative and supervisory positions

women are a labor reserve for this type of production.

Reference

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / the World Bank, 2009: Gender in
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International Centre for Research on Women, 2008: Women food security and agriculture
in a global marketplace

International Food and Poverty Research Institute, 2011: Agricultural Extension Services
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Ministry of Agriculture, 2011: 2012 Agriculture Sector progress report

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Ministry of Agriculture, 2011: Guidelines for Gender Mainstreaming in Agricultural Sector

Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 2010: Ethiopias agricultural sector policy
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Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 2008: rural capacity building project
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Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MOFED), 2013: Growth and

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