Food Security, Productivity, and Gender Inequality - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 284

The findings are notable. Several studies find no statistically significant difference in
managerial efficiency by the gender of the farmer, in terms of crop yields or production.7
Some show mixed effects, with no significant impact at the household level but a sig-
nificant impact by the gender of the plot manager (see, e.g., Saito et al. 1994 for Nigeria).
The majority of studies, however, find lower yields on women's plots/farms. This is not
attributable, however, to women's lesser capability as farmers but to one or more of the
following constraints: women's lower access to inputs, especially fertilizers; insecure
land rights; lower access to male labor, oxen, and extension services; and difficulties in
ensuring timely ploughing, weeding, or transportation. A few studies also demonstrate
that if women had access to the same inputs and extension services as men, they would
have higher outputs than male farmers.8 In Kenya, Dey (1992) found maize yields to be
almost 7% more on female-managed farms than on male-managed ones, when they had
the same access to extension. In Burkina Faso, Udry et al. (1995) estimated that output
could be increased by 10-15% if factors of production (such as manure and fertilizers)
were reallocated from men's plots to women's plots in the same household. Quisumbing
(1996) concludes that if Kenyan women farmers had had the same access as male farm-
ers to agricultural inputs and experience, their crop yields could have been raised by up
to 23%. This could have led to a doubling of Kenya's GDP growth rate from 4.3% to 8.3%
in 2004, according to World Bank estimates (World Bank 2009, 16).
There can also be an intrahousehold incentive effect if women control the products
of their labor. In Kenya, for instance, the introduction of weeding technology in maize
production raised yields on women's plots by 56%, where women controlled the output,
and only by 15% on the men's plots, where too women weeded but men got the proceeds
(Elson 1995). Since men tend to use more inputs and should, therefore, produce more
output, this substantial difference may be seen as a disincentive effect when women do
not receive compensation for their efforts within the family.
Studies in Asia are more sparse, but existing ones show that women farmers are as
productive as male farmers (Table 11.1), or would be as productive with the same access
to inputs and services (see Thapa 2008 for Nepal). Also illustrative is a rare study from
rural India, which examined the productive efficiency of men and women in using
potato-digging equipment. It found women to be several times more productive, by all
the measures used: women and men took 69 and 185 hours, respectively, for the same
job, and women's potato digging yield rate was 23.9 kg per 20 meters, whereas men's was
18.2 (Agarwal 1983: 56). Moreover, in South Asia, groups of women, farming collectively,
have helped to bring large tracts of fallow land under cultivation and enhanced house-
hold and community food security (see Agarwal 2003, and Section 7 of this chapter).
The overwhelming conclusion derived from the existing body of work is, therefore,
two fold. On the one hand, if women had the same access to inputs as men, production
would increase substantially on their farms. According to FAO's 2011 State of Food and
Agriculture Report , reducing the constraints faced by women farmers could raise yields
on their farms by 20-30% and raise total agricultural output in developing countries by
2.5-4%, thus making a significant impact on food availability (FAO 2011).9 On the other
hand, if we fail to bridge the gender gaps in access to production inputs and services,