Gender Responsive Extension Services in Northern Ghana

Accra, Jan. 30, GNA - Gender inequality in Africa is pervasive and its semblance in Ghana is manifested in the way some women farmers in Northern Ghana have difficulties accessing production assets and extension services due to socio-cultural barriers.

The cultural discrimination against women in terms of access to land culminates in the small plots of land apportioned to women, because ownership is vested in men, who act as the trustees of the land and by virtue of that have the greater share of the land.

In most parts of the Northern regions, particularly in the three sampled districts (East Mamprusi (Northern), Garu-Tempane (Upper East), and Wa East (Upper West) where   a survey on gender responsiveness to agricultural extension delivery, conducted by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (CSIR-STEPRI) with support from the USAID-APSP, men inherit land but women can only hold land in trust for their male sons who are still young and unableto make decisions on their own.

The control of the use of the land is transferred to the male children as and when they become matured.

In terms of access to labour, the surveys revealed that, men have more access to labour than women because it is encumbered on women to help on their husband’s farm.

The socio cultural inhibitions results in women cultivating smaller acreages of farm which is economically disincentive for women to use tractors.

The study also revealed that there were certain crops that were known to be cultivated by predominantly males. For instance male farmers cultivate maize crop and adopt related technologies while females cultivate soyabean and adopt soyabean related technologies.

 Some of the reasons for the ‘gendered crops’ is that the male headed households are responsible for the food security needs of the entire family which is provided by the cultivation of maize as the main food staple in the covered areas

Also men are more economically endowed than the females and are able to afford the       relatively high cost oftechnologies and inputs required in maize cultivation.

The reason for the high number of women involved in the cultivation of soya beans is           that its cultivation requires less expensive technologies and inputs.

It was observed that women were already burdened with huge household chores and had limited time for technologies that require additional time, and will resort to less laborious crops or varieties.

In terms of extension service to farmers, the same skewness is prominent and attributable to socio-cultural factors. Women in some parts of the study areas cannot directly seek the services of agricultural extension agents without the permission of their husbands or at least, the tacit approval of the husband.

This, it was observed did not inure to the benefit of the woman farmer and the effort to improving the general food and nutrition security of the nation.

It was also evident in the study that there were few women agricultural extension agents in all the three surveyed districts, which does not promote easy access of women to agricultural extension agents.

In communities where the norms frown on direct women – men interaction, one would have thought that the involvement of women in the delivery of extension services would have better presented by women to women.

The above limitations against female farmers can be overcome if extension package delivery is gender responsive as evidenced in the Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement (ADVANCE) program.

The ADVANCE Program sponsored by USAID aims at facilitating a transformation of Ghana’s agricultural sector in selected agricultural staples including maize, rice and soybean.

The overall goal is to achieve a greater degree of food security among the rural population in Northern Ghana while increasing competitiveness in the domestic markets.

The program built the capacity of smallholder farmers to increase the efficiency of their farm business with improved production technologies such as improved seed varieties and post-harvest handling practices.

Using the ADVANCE Program as a case study, we conducted a piece of research to understand how gender differences affect decision making processes at the household level in terms of access to production assets, adoption and use of improved technologies for improved agricultural productivity.

The study findings indicate that generally, extension delivery services are biased against women. This is evidenced by men being giving consideration first in extension and rural advisory services because of their resource endowment.

Men had more access to land and had relatively bigger farms sizes than women. Men could access extension officers outside community in situations where there were no extension officers in the communities because the men were more mobile than women.

Some females accessed extension through men house heads because of socio cultural inhibitions on women engaging frequently with men who were not their spouses or family people.

The ADVANCE Program made serious efforts at implementing approaches and innovations aimed at significantly boosting productivity and reducing cost of technologies/inputs which helped to break down the cultural and economic barriers hindering especially females in cultivating ‘male’ crops.

The study examined the effect of ADVANCE extension services and input support on crop income of maize and soybean in three districts in the Northern regions of Ghana including Garu – Tempane, Wa East and East Mamprusi.

The study found that agricultural programmes that deliberately targeted gender in extension activities benefited females better. The new socio cultural and financial dynamics resulting from the gendered extension delivery by the ADVANCE value chain program led to significant improvement in women empowerment.

Financially empowered women were able to overcome some of the cultural barriers to access production resources such as land, seed and extension services. The average percentage increase in access to land was estimated at 6.4% for those women beneficiaries.

The women who benefited from ADVANCE program had increased their farm yields by 22.9% per acre for maize and 13.8 % per acre for soybean resulting into improved incomes.

One of the ways extension services were given to some women was through the use of existing groups mainly formed to execute different tasks like the Village Savings and Loan Schemes. It would be good to strengthen such groups in order to enhance better communication between extension agents and potential women beneficiaries.

The study recommended that Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and its Development partners break gendered allocation of crop types through women empowerment programmes.

This can be achieved through the use of advocacy groups at the local level and most importantly to tackle strict traditional gender roles and socio-cultural barriers limiting women access to production resources.

MoFA extension delivery system could use male champions to increase women access to extension and rural advisory services.

By: Dr Wilhemina Quaye, Masahudu Fusieni and Dr Paul Boadu

CSIR-Science and Technology Policy Research Institute

GNA

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