Men and women in rice farming in Africa: A cross-country investigation of labor and its determinants

Women make significant contribution to rice farming, processing, and marketing, but only have limited access to technical knowledge and technologies that can reduce their drudgery and labor bottlenecks, and provide them with additional income. Women also oversee the reproductive responsibilities. Th...

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Autores principales: Medagbe, F. M.K., Komatsu, S., Mujawamariya, Gaudiose
Formato: Journal Article
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: Frontiers Media 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/110148
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author Medagbe, F. M.K.
Komatsu, S.
Mujawamariya, Gaudiose
author_browse Komatsu, S.
Medagbe, F. M.K.
Mujawamariya, Gaudiose
author_facet Medagbe, F. M.K.
Komatsu, S.
Mujawamariya, Gaudiose
author_sort Medagbe, F. M.K.
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Women make significant contribution to rice farming, processing, and marketing, but only have limited access to technical knowledge and technologies that can reduce their drudgery and labor bottlenecks, and provide them with additional income. Women also oversee the reproductive responsibilities. This paper comparatively investigates the role of women in rice farming across four countries (Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Madagascar, Sierra Leone) by examining the labor time distribution and its resulting income for men and women. It also assessed the determinants of their labor inputs in different rice farming environments. Results show that women and men spend on average 1 to 3 hours per day in rice production, making 45 to 135 working days of involvement in annual rice cultivation. Looking into the distribution of labor input provision in productive activities, it is found that apart from the specific activity of rice parboiling, which is practiced in certain countries mostly by women, men are the ones more engaged in rice farming. The specific labor input depends on several factors including the farm size, time spent on non-agricultural activities, and access to production equipment. These results provide the first evidence to that women farmers do not necessarily spend more time than men in rice cultivation in Africa, as it is often assumed. Certainly, across countries and systems, and also within male and female farmers categories, there are heterogenous labor inputs and associated determining factors and incomes. Male farmers earn higher income than female farmers in the different productive activities, except only for rice parboiling. This finding indicate that increasing labor input for rice would not result in higher income for female farmers. Female farmers might find better options by other agricultural activities such as food processing.
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spelling CGSpace1101482025-12-08T09:54:28Z Men and women in rice farming in Africa: A cross-country investigation of labor and its determinants Medagbe, F. M.K. Komatsu, S. Mujawamariya, Gaudiose women gender rice farming systems labour Women make significant contribution to rice farming, processing, and marketing, but only have limited access to technical knowledge and technologies that can reduce their drudgery and labor bottlenecks, and provide them with additional income. Women also oversee the reproductive responsibilities. This paper comparatively investigates the role of women in rice farming across four countries (Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Madagascar, Sierra Leone) by examining the labor time distribution and its resulting income for men and women. It also assessed the determinants of their labor inputs in different rice farming environments. Results show that women and men spend on average 1 to 3 hours per day in rice production, making 45 to 135 working days of involvement in annual rice cultivation. Looking into the distribution of labor input provision in productive activities, it is found that apart from the specific activity of rice parboiling, which is practiced in certain countries mostly by women, men are the ones more engaged in rice farming. The specific labor input depends on several factors including the farm size, time spent on non-agricultural activities, and access to production equipment. These results provide the first evidence to that women farmers do not necessarily spend more time than men in rice cultivation in Africa, as it is often assumed. Certainly, across countries and systems, and also within male and female farmers categories, there are heterogenous labor inputs and associated determining factors and incomes. Male farmers earn higher income than female farmers in the different productive activities, except only for rice parboiling. This finding indicate that increasing labor input for rice would not result in higher income for female farmers. Female farmers might find better options by other agricultural activities such as food processing. 2020-08-07 2020-11-12T14:47:36Z 2020-11-12T14:47:36Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/110148 en Open Access Frontiers Media Medagbe F. M.K., Komatsu S., Mujawamariya G., Saito K. Men and women in rice farming in Africa: A cross-country investigation of labor and its determinants.Frontiers in sustainable foods systems 2020, 4.
spellingShingle women
gender
rice
farming systems
labour
Medagbe, F. M.K.
Komatsu, S.
Mujawamariya, Gaudiose
Men and women in rice farming in Africa: A cross-country investigation of labor and its determinants
title Men and women in rice farming in Africa: A cross-country investigation of labor and its determinants
title_full Men and women in rice farming in Africa: A cross-country investigation of labor and its determinants
title_fullStr Men and women in rice farming in Africa: A cross-country investigation of labor and its determinants
title_full_unstemmed Men and women in rice farming in Africa: A cross-country investigation of labor and its determinants
title_short Men and women in rice farming in Africa: A cross-country investigation of labor and its determinants
title_sort men and women in rice farming in africa a cross country investigation of labor and its determinants
topic women
gender
rice
farming systems
labour
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/110148
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