Sustainable Agriculture Extension Manual

Access to and control over resources and benefits in Zambia

CARE-Zambia is working with 10,000 farmers in the drought-prone areas of Livingstone and Kalomo districts in southern Zambia. In 1994, the Livingstone Food Security Project was started with a goal to reduce household vulnerability to drought. The project aims to achieve household food security, establish responsive sustainable farming and water-use systems, and promote income generating activities—all reinforced by strong community-based institutions.

Gender analysis study

Realizing the importance of gender issues within the project areas, the staff conducted an assessment study in 1997 to discover the gender roles among the project communities and households. This revealed two major gender-related constraints to improving households' farm production:

Access to and control of productive resources (such as fertile land, cattle or oxen, ploughs and seeds for cash crops) used in farming.
The use of income from selling produce surpluses.

The gender analysis also revealed that men and women prefer to plant different crops (see the table below). Married women said they had inadequate access to or control over productive resources such as land, cattle and ploughs. They also said they received few of the benefits: their husbands did not share the household's income, and they could not get seeds of cash crops from the project.

Access to and control over resources

Most of the project participants belong to a group called the Tonga, after the language they speak. Traditionally, when a Tonga woman marries, she goes to live in her husband's village. She is regarded as a temporary resident in both her parents' and her husband's village, meaning she has less access to productive resources. Under traditional law, the village headman cannot allocate land to a married woman; rather, it must be allocated by the husband. Women cannot own oxen or land because they are believed to be too weak to do so. Men pay a large dowry when they get married, so many people see a wife as her husband's property, or as his labourer who will help him get rich.

Land ownership and use

Tonga households traditionally grow crops in two separate sets of fields—those managed by the husband, and those managed by the wife. Because the husband owns the land, he decides what to plant, how much to plant, where to plant it. Each year, he will also allocate fields to his wife, based on the performance of the previous year's crop. Usually, he reserves the more fertile and productive fields for himself so he can grow maize and cash crops. His fields are also known as the "family fields", since this is where maize (the main staple) is produced. The crop is stored for use by the family, but any surplus can be sold by the husband.

The husband allocates his wife the rest of the fields—mostly infertile land. She has no choice but to accept the land she is given. She usually uses it to grow groundnuts, but sometimes she plants cowpeas or other crops. The area of groundnuts is limited, the average being about 0.4 ha. Groundnuts are grown for food, but she can sell any surplus to buy items for the household or herself. The husband has no control over this income, except by controlling the area under cultivation and the timing of planting.

Control and ownership of other productive assets

Cattle are important among the Tonga, who see them as a source of wealth and as a form of savings and security. However, the only person in the household who can own cattle

is the husband. This includes any cattle purchased using family earnings. The use and

control of the cattle (and the plough) by the husband can be seen clearly during land preparation and planting. Men do the ploughing, and women do the planting (this is true for both maize and groundnuts). Work starts in the husband’s fields and then moves to the wife’s fields. The wife’s crops often end up being planted late, sometimes resulting in poor yields.

The table below shows that female-headed households are particularly affected. The woman in such a household may own land and usually grows both maize and groundnuts, but has to rely on family labour.

Access to seeds of cash-crops

Due to a series of droughts (1991–92, and 1994–95), the Livingstone Food Security Project identified the need for a source of quality seeds through a participatory appraisal. In response, the project began a seed multiplication and distribution programme. Since the 1994/95 season, it has distributed seeds of drought-tolerant varieties of the most important crops in the area: maize, cowpeas, sorghum, millet, groundnuts and green gram. These varieties require few external inputs, thus helping to ensure that all farmers can benefit.

Although the seed is available to both men and women on an equal basis, women tend to want groundnuts, while men choose maize. Relatively few women have access to maize seed, the main crop for both food and cash. Husbands do not like their wives to grow maize in the wife’s fields because they fear she might neglect the family fields.

Household income

The household earns most of its money by selling surplus maize and other cash crops. This money is controlled by the husband, while the women control any income from selling groundnuts. The husband buys productive assets such as ploughs and oxen, while the wife buys non-productive assets, such as poultry and kitchen utensils.

Consequences

There are various consequences of the inequitable access and control between men and women.

Women are generally not involved in making decisions about money from the surplus maize produced from the family fields (those managed by the husband). The husband usually spends this money without it sharing with his wife (or wives). This is particularly a problem if the man has more than one wife; he may prefer to spend the money himself rather than sharing it among many wives. It is also a problem in areas with higher production, and when farmers are paid in a lump sum.
Men may control the productive resources of the household as a way to keep production of groundnuts down, so reducing his wife’s ability to earn money that she will control herself.
Households headed by women get poor yields because they are forced by lack of labour to plough and plant late, and because they are allocated infertile land.
During the 1996/97 season, 126 men grew seeds as part of the project’s on-farm seed-growing scheme, but only 16 women did so. Because the seeds are supposed to be sold (or exchanged) within the community, a husband may argue with his wife over the money if she grows and sells seeds.
Wives work less on the maize in the family fields to concentrate on their own groundnuts; this may lower yields of the family’s main food crop.
Women “steal” maize from their husbands’ fields because they know they will not benefit from the income generated. This may affect the household’s food security.

Project interventions

To address these problems, the Livingstone project and local communities planned and embarked on the following activities.

Distribution of seed loans to individuals (both men and women), as opposed to households. This has given women more access to seed to grow their own crops for food and income. Some have brewed sorghum and sold beer to earn money.
Broadening the range of seeds distributed to include crops that women want.
Through a savings and credit scheme, some women are currently saving part of their income to buy productive assets of their own. This is followed with counselling on joint decision-making between husbands and wives over the use of family income.
Gender-awareness training has been conducted for community leaders (mostly men), who go on to train others. The trained leaders have helped negotiate with other men on increasing the participation of women in all development issues.
Women have conducted experiments on ways to improve soil fertility using green manure crops. These methods are being tested with a view to improving the productivity of the women’s fields.
The project has stimulated representative community-based organizations to embrace the concerns expressed by both men and women. These organizations are known as “village management committees” (covering one village) and “area management committees” (covering two or more villages). These committees are responsible for initiating, planning and maintaining their own development activities. The project trains their leaders in group management, gender and development, land husbandry, and marketing. The organizations distribute seeds loaned to farmers, collect the loan payments, administer a rotating savings scheme, and provide agricultural extension services to other farmers.

For more information, contact Emma Sitambuli, CARE–Zambia.


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