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Gender, Household Composition, and Adoption of Soil Fertility Technologies: A Study of Women Rice Farmers in Southern Senegal

by Amy J. Sullivan Introduction If as claimed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations women grow up to eighty percent of the food produced in Africa, then targeting them during research, technology development and dissemination makes sense. In order to do so, it is necessary to recognize that not all women farmers […]

Diminishing Choices: Gender, Small Bags of Fertilizer, and Household Food Security Decisions in Malawi

by Robert P. Uttaro Abstract This paper examines two decisions farmers in southern Malawi make every planting season: whether or not to acquire increasingly expensive chemical fertilizers and whether or not to buy and plant equally expensive hybrid maize seed.   Both choices are interrelated.  Maize is the staple food crop in Malawi and the key […]

Gender and Soil Fertility Management in Mbale District, Southeastern Uganda

by Abe Goldman and Kathleen Heldenbrand Introduction This paper explores gender-related aspects of agriculture and agricultural change in a densely populated, high potential area in eastern Uganda, particularly in relation to declining productivity in the region.  Much recent literature has investigated the impacts of specific agricultural policies and projects on women farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.  […]

Gender and Soil Fertility in Uganda: A Comparison of Soil Fertility Indicators for Women and Men’s Agricultural Plots

by Peter Nkedi-Kizza, Jacob Aniku, Kafui Awuma, and Christina H. Gladwin Abstract The removal of subsidy under the structural adjustment programs of the World Bank has increased the cost of fertilizers and lowered the level of fertilizer input use among the small-scale farmers in Uganda and in many African countries.  It is also reported that female […]

Women’s Movements, Customary Law, and Land Rights in Africa: The Case of Uganda

by Aili Mari Tripp Abstract Much of the literature on women and land tenure in Africa has viewed the introduction of land titling, registration, and the privatization of land under colonialism and after independence as a setback for women, leaving women in a state of even greater insecurity with poorer prospects for accessing land, and […]

Colonial Policies and Women’s Participation in Public Life: The Case of British Southern Cameroons

by Melinda Adams Abstract Much of the literature on colonial policies towards women has highlighted the ways that these policies spread Western notions of domesticity and narrowed the space available for African women to participate in public life. Drawing from the case of British Southern Cameroons, this paper argues that colonial policies and encounters were […]

Becoming Local Citizens: Senegalese Female Migrants and Agrarian Clientelism in The Gambia

by Pamela Kea Abstract Drawing on ethnographic research with Senegalese female migrants in Brikama, The Gambia, this article examines local citizenship and agrarian clientelism. Emphasis is placed on female migrants because of the dearth of ethnographic literature on female migrants in West Africa and to highlight the centrality of female migrants to processes of incorporation, […]