Gender Analysis of a Nationwide Cropping System Trial Survey in Malawi

Abstract

The majority of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are female, yet women often have limited access to extension information and agricultural inputs. Designing improved agricultural research and extension services for women in Africa is a challenging task since female farmers defy simple characterizations, and the effect of gender versus income levels relative to quality of extension services received is difficult to disentangle. The accurate characterization of farmers targeted by extension on a large scale supports efforts to quantify potential impacts of extension programs in Africa. A nationwide trial comparing legume cropping systems to fertilized and unfertilized maize controls was implemented at approximately 1400 on-farm sites by the Malawian extension service and cooperator farmers in the 1998-99 cropping season. In addition to agronomic yield data collection, extension agents conducted a socioeconomic survey of the farmers involved in the trial. The objective of the survey was twofold: to determine socioeconomic characteristics of the farmers collaborating with the extension service, and to assess farmer opinions regarding the cropping systems being promoted.  Of the 1385 sites, only 270 (19 percent) involved female farmer cooperators, although women constitute 69 percent of the full-time farmer population in Malawi. The 1115 male farmers had significantly greater experience as head of household, used more fertilizer, and devoted a greater area to cash crops. There were no significant gender differences across crop yields when inputs were supplied, indicating that female farmers were as productive as their male counterparts. Farmer ranking and rating of the cropping systems were remarkably similar between the genders. Mucuna pruriens was perceived as having the lowest overall labor requirements, while fertilized maize had the highest food production rating. Unfertilized maize and local control plots fared poorly in both farmer rating and ranking of treatments.  Overall, these results suggest that the extension service skewed the trials toward “well-to-do” male farmers.   However, the extension service was able to implement a complex trial that included field days attended by over 106,000 farmers. Thus the national extension service in Malawi may well be suited to collaborate with and “scale-up” locally significant NGO efforts which may target more representative farmers.