Window dressing inequalities and constructing women farmers as problematic—gender in Rwanda’s agriculture policy

Rwanda is often depicted as a success story by policy makers when it comes to issues of gender. In this paper, we show how the problem of gendered inequality in agriculture nevertheless is both marginalized and instrumentalized in Rwanda’s agriculture policy. Our in-depth analysis of 12 national policies is informed by Bacchi’s What’s the problem represented to be? approach. It attests that gendered inequality is largely left unproblematized as well as reduced to a problem of women’s low agricultural productivity. The policy focuses on framing the symptoms and effects of gendered inequality and turns gender mainstreaming into an instrument for national economic growth. We argue that by insufficiently addressing the socio-political underlying causes of gendered inequality, Rwanda’s agriculture policy risks reproducing and exacerbating inequalities by reinforcing dominant gender relations and constructing women farmers as problematic and men as normative farmers. We call for the policy to approach gendered inequality in alternative ways. Drawing on perspectives in feminist political ecology, we discuss how such alternatives could allow policy to more profoundly challenge underlying structural constraints such as unequal gender relations of power, gender norms, and gender divisions of work. This would shift policy’s problematizing lens from economic growth to social justice, and from women’s shortcomings and disadvantages in agriculture to the practices and relations that perpetuate inequality. In the long term, this could lead to transformed gender norms and power relations, and a more just and equal future beyond what the dominant agricultural development discourse currently permits

Engendered promises, gendered challenges : Changing patterns of labor, control and benefits among smallholder households growing NERICA in Uganda

NERICA is a new group of high-yielding and stress-tolerant upland rice varieties, developed by the Africa Rice Center to address the continent-wide rice challenge, poverty and food insecurity. Recognizing that African women farmers do not always benefit from the introduction of productivity-enhancing technology and higher-value crops, the aim of my thesis is to understand processes leading to NERICA-related wellbeing outcomes among differently comprised grower households in Hoima District, Uganda, by examining inter- and intrahousehold gender dynamics. More specifically, I analyze how the cultivation of NERICA influences smallholder women, men and children’s daily lives and wellbeing. My thesis is qualitatively designed and driven in that I am particularly interested in understanding and elucidating the subjective and embodied experiences of the NERICA growers in Hoima District. In researching their complex, gendered realities I have been using an integrated mixed methods approach. The research results are presented in three articles. I show that for many smallholder households, especially those headed by women, NERICA has turned out to be an economic opportunity in terms of cash income that goes unmatched. I also show that many women in male-headed households are more successful in bargaining for shares of the NERICA proceeds than they ever have been in relation to the proceeds from traditional cash crops like tobacco. At the same time, I identify several gendered challenges in relation to the production of NERICA in Uganda. These are related to, on one hand, female-headed households’ worse access to land and remunerative markets than male-headed households, which is constraining their production and market performance in relation to NERICA, and, on the other, the extreme labor burdens that NERICA demands in bird and weed control, which affects women and children’s wellbeing negatively by exacerbating their time poverty and energy expense. My thesis can be read as a gender-informed analysis of the recent surge of NERICA in Hoima District, Uganda. But the concern of the thesis goes beyond both NERICA and Uganda. It points to the value of considering female- and male-headed households’ various endowments and capabilities in specific localities, as well as differences in gendered resources, roles and responsibilities among women and men farmers (and their children) in these localities, when new productivity-enhancing agricultural technology and higher-value crops are introduced

The Gendered Production---Marketing Continuum of NERICA Upland Rice in Hoima District, Uganda

Drawing on a survey covering 302 smallholder households growing NERICA upland rice in Hoima District, Uganda, complimented by qualitative data, this paper will first show that NERICA has become an important food and income earner for these farmers. More than one third of their total cultivated acreage is dedicated to this new crop, and with over three quarters of the harvest being sold off at competitive rates, it makes a significant contribution to the households’ income portfolios. Next, the paper will argue that NERICA can provide an important entry point for Ugandan women farmers into more commercially oriented modes of production. The traditional cash crops grown in the district such as tobacco are generally controlled by men, and the food crop surpluses that women usually market fetch low prices. Rice not solely being perceived as a commercial crop but also a food crop seems to have made it more accessible to women as it thereby escapes gendered cultural taboos. Hence NERICA has provided socio-economic leverage for women farmers vis-à-vis men farmers when it has expanded the space for women to earn money. It has even made it possible for female-headed households to reach the same level of rice market integration as male-headed households. However, the impact it has had on women in male-headed households depends on the degree of control these women have been able to attain over the proceeds from the crop in relation to their husbands, which nevertheless invariably seems greater than for the traditional cash crops

New Seeds and Women's Welfare - The Case of NERICA Upland Rice and Labor Dynamics in Hoima District, Uganda

African women farmers do not always benefit from and are sometimes adversely affected by the introduction of new technologies, including high-yielding varieties and their often-associated improved management systems. This paper seeks to further this claim in the wake of what has been referred to as "the NERICA Revolution" in Uganda, by providing an illustration of the impact the introduction of NERICA upland rice has had on the gendered labor dynamics in smallholder households in Hoima District. The concrete effects on women farmers are particularly considered. To date, "the success" of the dissemination of NERICA has mainly been measured econometrically in terms of production growth or household income gain. This type of analysis allows for capturing shifts in physiological deprivations on household level. But it omits the dimension of social deprivation that, on the individual level, considers the prevalence or absence of empowering elements such as time, influence on decisionmaking, access to information and education, etc. Having researched women’s experiences of the introduction of NERICA both qualitatively and quantitatively, we conclude that while households that have adopted NERICA have, as units, become better off in economic terms (their physiological deprivation reduced), the extreme labor burden NERICA induces on women exacerbates their social deprivations, particularly in terms of time poverty and drudgery. This has policy implications. If NERICA is going to become a sustainable powerful poverty fighter in Uganda, as many hope, it is imperative that this aspect is addressed so as to avoid farmers opting out of the production over time

New seeds, gender norms and labor dynamics in Hoima District, Uganda

NERICA, a new group of high-yielding and stress-tolerant upland rice varieties developed by the Africa Rice Center, is changing production strategies of many Ugandan households. This article contributes a better understanding of processes leading to NERICA-related household outcomes in Hoima District, Uganda, by examining patterns of intrahousehold production relations and their consequences for household members' individual wellbeing. Research presented here provides a timely illustration of the impact that the introduction of NERICA in Hoima District has had on gendered labor dynamics in grower households. Drawing on a combination of quantitative and qualitative data, the analysis is grounded in the local context and the embodied and gendered subjectivities of smallholder women, men and children. Findings reveal that, while households that have adopted NERICA have become better off in economic terms, the extreme labor burden that NERICA demands in bird scaring and weeding affects women and children's wellbeing negatively by exacerbating their time poverty and energy expense. The article makes a case for more comprehensive assessments of agricultural intensification processes that involve diffusion of new production technology, arguing that such assessments should also contain an analysis of gendered labor dynamics within households