Participation of Women in Agriculture: Reality or Rhetoric? (original) (raw)

Feminist discourses - from Women in Development (WID) to Gender and Development (GAD) approaches - have not fundamentally engaged with the structural inequalities that perpetuate women’s subordination. Governments on the African continent tend to adopt a market-driven model in agriculture that emphasises women’s participation as a means to achieve both subsistence and income-generation. Women have not fared well under such programmes, begging the question: what assumptions and biases underpin this approach to development? This empirical study interrogates women’s empowerment in the agricultural sector by posing questions around one key issue: why do agricultural programmes fail to transform women’s material conditions even where there are adequate resources in the form of donor support and female service providers? Data collection methods comprised of observations, interviews and documentary analysis. The findings reveal that the factors that arise out of the Western modernisation p...