The poor agricultural system in Africa, who is to blame?

Although agriculture is the backbone of the African economy, it has faced considerable challenges in the past sixty years. Africa has moved from being a self-sufficiency continent before the 1960s, to net food importers, with a handful of countries facing severe food shortages from drought, desertification, climate change and wars. In this article, we use the case of Northern Ghana to explore some of the salient dynamics that have resulted in the current crisis in the African agricultural sector over time. Using historical and contemporary evidence gathered from Northern Ghana during several field trips from 2013 to 2015, we argue that practices adopted as a result of colonial influence in combination with socio-economic and biophysical factors and ineffective economic policies have contributed immensely to the poor state of agriculture in Africa. Note should be taken that most of these economic policies have origins from the Structural Adjustment Policies and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. We conclude that our agricultural systems can be improved if policies are inclusive, equitable and sustainable and also if there are synergies between international or government organisations implementing agricultural projects over time and space

Learning to select and apply qualitative and participatory methods in natural resource management research: self-critical assessment of research in Cameroon

Biophysical scientists are increasingly interested in undertaking research on natural resources management from a social science perspective. This, however, requires at least a basic understanding of the different social science approaches and the philosophical perspectives underlying them. We present a meta-analysis of a researcher's experience when applying qualitative and participatory research methods for the first time, and reflect on the challenges and lessons learned that could help other aspiring researchers in conducting research with such methods. We compare researcher's experiences with a quantitative research tool (household surveys) and qualitative non-participatory (focus group discussions) and participatory tools (seasonal activity calendars and access and control matrices) used in a gender-responsive forestry study in Cameroon. The field research included almost 50 gender- and age-disaggregated group sessions. Based on the meta-analysis of the research process, we identified key factors affecting the perceived ease of eliciting and interpreting information with different types of social research tools: specificity and acceptance of a tool, ease of managing social dynamics and maintaining focus during data collection, and subjectivity and comparability during data analysis and interpretation. Developing skills in participatory research from research design to group facilitation and balanced interpretation of findings require considerable time and is often best learned through apprenticeship. We explore how experience gained through the use of participatory research tools and reflection will help in applying such tools better, improving interaction with research participants and increasing relevance of research results

Deconstructing leisure time and workload: case of women bean producers in Kenya

Background: The notion of leisure became pronounced more than 20 years ago when women who worked on or out of the farm came home to a “second shift,” which entailed domestic work and childcare. This gap continues today not only between men and women but also among women and men. Women’s challenges in terms of their leisure arise out of or are shaped by social norms and diferent life contexts. Method: The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) was conducted to understand women’s empowerment and disempowerment status in agricultural activities in five counties in Kenya in 2017. In 2019, focus group discussions were carried out in two of the fve counties to understand how men and women farmers define leisure and assess the leisure gap and its effect on women’s farm and household activities. We were also interested in understanding how men’s and women’s workload affects leisure and other productive economic activities, resulting in empowerment and how women’s unpaid work contributes to income poverty. Result: The WEAI showed that 28% of disempowerment (5DE) in women farmers is due to lack of time for leisure activities and 18% from being overworked. This means that the time indicator accounts for 46% of disempowerment in Kenyan women bean farmers. Men in Bomet and Narok spent more time than women in raising large livestock and leisure. Women in Bomet spent more time than men in cooking and domestic work (fetching water and collecting fuelwood), while men in Bomet spent more time than women in managing their businesses. Conclusion: Work overload is a constraining factor to women’s empowerment in bean production and agricultural productivity. What is considered leisure for men and women is embedded in society’s social fabrics, and it is contextual. This paper highlights instances where leisure provides a way for women to embody and/or resist the discourses of gender roles in the bean value chain and households to enhance food security and healt

Urban farmers coping strategies in the wake of urbanization and changing market in Tamale, Northern Ghana

Vegetable cultivation is a survival strategy for the urban population, especially with the increasing population, urbanization, and high unemployment rate. For decades, men have practiced vegetable cultivation in Tamale's metropolitan city, with women being involved at the last node of the value chain – marketing. Women are known as market queens, and culturally, sell foodstuff in the market, unlike men who can’t do the same. These market queens buy vegetables from farm gates and sell them at wholesale prices to other market women who retail them in the market. An ethnographic study was carried out to understand how farmers carry out their farming activities and marketing in the face of changing market trends and urbanization and how urbanization and markets shape and regulate farmers’ agricultural practices with implications for urban agricultural policy and town planning. Results show that urbanization has influenced urban and peri-urban land prices resulting in the leasing of prime agricultural lands by chiefs for industrial and residential purposes. As such, farmers cope by negotiating farmland with government and private institutions, with more success. Farmers also practice mixed cropping to buffer climatic shocks and address market gluts to meet household needs and income. Even though urbanization poses a risk for farmers, it also creates spaces where farmers’ practices are reshaped as they network with agro-dealers, buyers, and researchers in their everyday activities, contributing to urban gardening policies and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1

Access to and control over resources in urban agriculture in Tamale, Ghana

Urban and Regional Agriculture: Building Resilient Food Systems explores the sustainable integration of food provision, distribution and consumption through urban farms, agricultural systems, user communities and structural facilities designed to optimize food production and consumption. The book addresses the fundamental and pressing challenges of urban planning problems, waste minimization, food sourcing, access and equity issues, and multiple land use optimization. Sections cover the need and opportunities of urban agriculture, discuss tradition and transition, space and regulatory topics, explore the range of urban agriculture options (aquaculture to urban permaculture), discuss support structures and constructs of physically creating urban agricultural areas, and much more. Edited and authored by leading experts in the field, this volume will be valuable for those working to address issues of food security in urban environments

Power imbalances, social inequalities and gender roles as barriers to true participation in national park management: The case of Korup National Park, Cameroon

Forest resource management has undergone profound changes in the last decades, including a tendency to apply participatory approach that seeks to involve local communities. However, the success of the participatory approach tends to remain dependent on the historical and societal context in question. To understand how the participation of forest communities has been changing as a result of the enforcement or non-enforcement of forest management practices, we carried out a study in Cameroon's Korup National Park, with villages within and outside the park that continue to utilise the resources in the park. The empirical research included focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews in three communities and key informant interviews with selected community members, government officials, and non-governmental organisations involved in the park's management. Research findings show that although the forest management system has changed in various policy documents, over the past years from a top-down to participatory approach, a centralised state system is still operational in the national park, with participatory approaches used merely as a legitimizing tool. We show how the existing horizontal power relations (such as gender roles within the communities) and vertical power relations (such as government-community dimensions) simultaneously impact the outcomes of participatory approaches on the ground. Finally, our case shows how the existing governance structures continue to reproduce inequalities and exclusions that originated from the colonial times and through path dependency still influence livelihoods and day-to-day survival of people in the communities.202