In print
Agricultural Implements Used by Women Farmers in Africa
produced by IFAD, September 1998
107 Via del Serafico, 00142 Rome, ITALY
130pp ISBN 92-9072-008-5
ifad@ifad.org
In many rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa, women are left to farm alone
as their menfolk move to seek work in urban areas. Despite the increase in
women's responsibilities, their status remains the same with little access
to cash or credit. Women are simply expected to work harder with the same
agricultural implements, many of which are hand tools made of poor quality
materials. More than 70% of all food production in Africa is now carried out
by women and, with household food security hanging in the balance 
in so many countries, any improvement to the tools and implements
used by women on the land could well be central to improving family welfare.
Agricultural Implements Used by Women Farmers in Africa is the result of a study conducted by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) with help from the Agricultural Engineering Branch of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The study, financed by the Government of Japan, was conducted over three months in Burkina Faso, Senegal, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe in an attempt to establish the social, cultural, economic and technical context of existing agricultural implements.
Discussions with 1,500 women and men farmers across the countries revealed that there were significant differences in the levels and types of production tools which were used. The lowest level of technology was found in Burkina Faso, where few animal draught implements were used and hand tools were of poor quality materials. The highest quality implements were found in Zimbabwe.
However, the hand-hoe is still the most common farm tool despite the consensus that weeding with a hand-hoe was the most laborious and physically demanding task for women. Animal traction is considered by most farmers to be the solution but in most areas, it is still only men that receive training and the growth of this technology has been further limited by lack of credit, unfavourable weather conditions and spread in animal diseases. A variety of other hoes and tools are used in crop production but it was observed that traditional gender usage of farm implements has now largely disappeared.
In conclusion it was realised that there is no quick and easy solution for improving agricultural tools for women. However, greater access to resources, training in animal traction and a change in men's attitudes would greatly aid crop production and family welfare.
Life out of Bounds: Bioinvasion in a borderless world
by Chris Bright 1998
published by The Worldwatch Institute, W.W. Norton & Co, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.
10110, USA
287pp. price US$13 ISBN 0-393-31814-1
According to the Worldwatch Institute, biological pollution is sweeping the planet, as the global trade carries non-native "exotic" species across all boundaries. "Because it brings the intelligence of evolution to bear, bioinvasion is a kind of 'smart' pollution", says Chris Bright, author of Life out of Bounds. "Compared to living things, chemical spills are 'dumb' - they're inert, they cannot reproduce and they tend to dissipate over time. But when an exotic species establishes a beachhead, it can proliferate over time and spread to new areas. It can also adapt - it tends to get better and better at exploiting an area's resources, and at suppressing native species."
There are, of course, many examples of where unintentional - or intentional - introductions have proved disastrous to agriculture and the natural habitat. But the author also singles out for criticism the "impulse to 'improve' rangeland by introducing exotics - still a standard part of agricultural psychology - despite the hundreds of invasions that forage introductions have already unleashed."
Perhaps our readers, many of them likely to have experience of rangeland improvement, would like to comment on this statement. We would be pleased to feature this subject in our Debate section. It is also interesting that the publishers thought it appropriate to mention in their note about the author that "he lives outside Washington D.C., on land formerly occupied by the Tauxenant people, . . . where he cultivates a collection of exotic conifers."
Saving money or saving cost?
Available from PDA, Brixtarw, Laugharne, Carmarthen, SA33 4QP, UK
A new publication from the Potash
Development Association highlights the difference between calculating the
cost of fertilizer as price per hectare and price per tonne of yield. Despite
the reduction in agricultural product prices and the need, therefore, to monitor,
and reduce if possible, all variable input prices, the perceptive farmer will
be careful to avoid cuts that will jeopardize yield or quality. Cutting
Fertiliser Costs is the cleverly worded title of this leaflet which is
available from PDA, Brixtarw, Laugharne, Carmarthen, SA33 4QP, UK
World Hunger: Twelve Myths, (Second Edition)
by Frances Moore Lappé, Joseph Collins and Peter Rosset, October 1998
published by the Institute for Food and Development Policy, 398 60th Street, Oakland, CA 94618, USA
price US$13 ISBN 0-8021-5041-4
"Hunger is not a myth, but myths keep us from ending hunger" is
the central tenet of this book which sets
out to disprove such myths as: Not enough food to go around; Nature's to blame
for famine; The free market can end hunger; We need large farms; Free trade
is the answer, etc. The authors explain, for example, that "while soybean
exports boomed in Brazil to feed Japanese and European livestock, hunger spread
from one-third to two-thirds of the population."
This second edition takes into account changes such as the end of the Cold War, economic globalization etc. "To be part of the answer to world hunger means letting go of old frameworks and grappling with new ideas and approaches," claims Rosset. "This will enable us to stop twisting our values so that economic dogma might remain intact while millions of fellow human beings starve amid ever greater abundance."
The
Science and Practice of Pig Production (second edition)
