Women in Smallholder Fadama Farming: Significance, Roles and Constraints

Abstract

This paper presents results from a recent fieldwork in Nigeria and explores the socioeconomic dimension of gender as it relates to agriculture in the fadama areas of North-Central Nigeria. Findings reveal the central role women play in smallholder agriculture and how this is shaped by complex social processes that are inextricably linked with power relations. Through direct and indirect agricultural activities, women provide the bulk of the labor in smallholder agriculture. This is often in addition to the central role they play in maintaining the family structure. Notwithstanding their input to agricultural production and the family, women in the study areas are greatly disadvantaged as demonstrated by cultural practices that exclude them from owning the primary means of production, land and relegate them to the status of second class citizens. This prejudicial position of women in these communities was found out to be the result of multifaceted factors that include cultural practices which understands 'the woman in a certain way' and thus constructs her identity and role accordingly.