How much labour is done by women in African agriculture: telling fact from myth?

Image courtesy of [africa] at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What if what we thought to be true about African agriculture was wrong? So often we turn to well used statistics and commonly-held beliefs when we describe the challenges African farmers face: low access to credit and inputs, high post-harvest losses and imperfect markets. We rely on conventional wisdom to characterise agriculture across the whole continent, in part to make up for the lack of sound evidence on which to base our characterisations.

Now a new project entitled “Agriculture in Africa– Telling Facts from Myths” aims to test the validity of common wisdom and update our understanding of farming in Africa. An update desperately needed due to our reliance on outdated knowledge and rapid socio-economic and physical changes happening in Africa. Initiated by the Chief Economist’s Office of the World Bank Africa Region, the project is a collaboration with the African Development Bank, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, Cornell University, the Food and Agriculture Organization, London School of Economics, Maastricht School of Management, University of Pretoria, University of Rome Tor Vergata, University of Trento, and Yale University.

The commonly accepted wisdoms the project aims to challenge are:

1. Use of modern inputs remains dismally low
2. Land, labour and capital markets remain largely incomplete
3. Land is abundant and land markets are poorly developed
4. Access to credit is limited
5. Labour productivity in agriculture is low
6. Women perform the bulk of Africa’s agricultural tasks
7. Agroforestry is gaining traction
8. African agriculture is intensifying
9. Seasonality continues to permeate rural livelihoods
10. The majority of rural households are net food buyers
11. Post harvest losses are large
12. Droughts dominate Africa’s risk environment
13. African farmers are increasingly diversifying their incomes
14. The young are leaving agriculture
15. Household enterprises operate mainly in survival mode
16. Agricultural commercialisation improves nutritional outcomes

The project uses data collected under the Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) initiative. These surveys, on both agricultural and non-agricultural facets of people’s lives, have been conducted in Ethiopia, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda from 2008 onwards and participants will be visited four times in total by 2020, and represent 40% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa. Although still in the early phase of the project, initial findings can be found here, for instance post harvest losses are being reported at levels less than figures reported by the FAO on which many publications rely.

Looking to number 6 in the list, one belief is that women contribute a higher share of the labour on farms than men in Africa. It is commonly cited that women’s labour contribution in African farming is between 60 to 80% but is this true? The 2010-2011 State of Food and Agriculture report from the FAO, the theme of which was women in agriculture, was a key publication in shedding light on this gender gap and reported that women make up around 50% of the agricultural labour force in Africa. A paper by Palacios-Lopez et al (2015) calculated that women contribute some 40% of agricultural labour hours to crop production, lower than commonly used estimates.

A recent article warns that we should be careful with such data, however, as labour and time data are difficult to record accurately without long-term observation. In this example, Palacios-Lopez et al’s figure only looks at labour related to crop production that occurs on plots but fails to encompass activities such as livestock production, marketing and post harvest crop processing. And although the authors argue that there is no justification in focusing on women farmers disproportionately to men to increase productivity, there is more to the argument than a single figure.

Women typically have less access to resources such as extension, inputs, labour, land and credit so the marginal impact of targeting female farmers may be high. A joint World Bank and ONE study, Levelling the field: improving opportunities for women farmers in Africa, found that for 6 countries in sub-Saharan Africa on-farm production rates were between 23% and 66% less among women than men. Given the low resource and productivity base women are starting from, tailoring technology and policies to women may bring about a significant greater increase in production than if targeted to men.

Targeting women is also important for tackling nutrition and child welfare, domains typically the responsibility of women. Indeed the FAO estimate that if women had the same access to resources worldwide as men, their yields would increase by up to 30%, which could result in up to 150 million fewer people going hungry.

But to get back to the question: how much labour is done by African women? The answer is we don’t really know, we probably can’t ever know for sure but getting closer to a more accurate estimation is no bad thing, particularly where evidence drives change and information shapes our actions. That said, we need a much better overall picture of the role women play in farming on the continent not just the share of labour.

The project is still working on verifying this particular common wisdom and while gender equality will remain an important issue whatever the outcome, the project can help streamline, target and improve agricultural development activity in Africa.

For a broader discussion of the role of women in African agriculture see the Montpellier Panel’s report, Women in African Agriculture: Farmers, mothers, innovators and educators.