Empowering Women Through Agricultural Extension: A Global Perspective

Very little is yet known about what works to bridge the gender gap in agricultural Extension.1

This article argues for Extension as an important vehicle for integrating women into official development efforts throughout the world and for empowering them as human beings. Thus, we're interested in the process of development, women's empowerment within this process, and Extension's role in advancing both development and women's empowerment.

Our thesis is that to be effective, efficient, and sustainable, development goals require that Extension Services recruit and train women professionals, develop programs for women farmers, specifically target women to provide access to Extension Services, establish linkages with rural women's groups, and encourage women farmers to participate in Extension's program activities.

We begin with a review of the literature on agriculture and Extension. Seven action recommendations are then put forward that we consider necessary for agricultural Extension Systems and their programs to develop to empower women. These recommendations are based on international and national reports on agricultural Extension and their findings about the advancement of women, their empowerment through Extension, and the results to date.

While recognizing that national policy and strategy must precede organization of Extension Services and implementation of Extension programs in favor of women, we begin with institutional actions that we consider the basis for Extension policy and strategies as these refer to women farmers and women in Extension Services. We maintain that seven Extension actions serve to foster agricultural productivity, gender equity, and rural poverty alleviation. But before considering these actions, we must respond to two primary questions: What is known? What does the literature tell us?

The following literature overview isn't intended to be exhaustive, but rather indicative of the international situation about agriculture, women in agriculture, and the role of Extension with respect to women in agriculture and in the Extension Services. A brief reference to the sources examined follows each of the highlighted items for those readers who want to search further into the subject:

1. Women are major participants in agricultural production.2

2. Women's activities have a major impact on a nation's health and nutrition.3

3. "Women in Extension" is a new international priority linked to efficiency and sustainability.4

4. Dual socioeconomic systems that in turn foster gender duality operate in the agricultural sector.5

5. Specific strategies are needed for Extension to reach women farmers.6

6. Discrepancies exist between government policies related to Extension programs for women and actual Extension programs.7

7. Special research on traditional food crops is required to develop Extension Services for women.8

8. Women lack access to Extension Services and are often bypassed by Extension.9

9. Export-oriented monocropping increases women's work at the expense of their traditional endeavors and often weakens their economic position.10

10. Resources and knowledge about production don't "trickle across" from men to women.11

11. Privatization and cost-recovery trends bode ill for women farmers. Privatization is generally associated and emphasizes crops with a high cash value, and the latter is directed toward the household member who controls the finances. However, the point may be moot, as some researchers12 claim that export promotion has more potential to contribute to women in development goals than is presently recognized.

These 11 findings from the literature emphasize the contributions and difficulties, as well as certain foreboding trends, associated with the work of women in agricultural development. They don't underline the positive steps taken in this domain - such as the growing commitment of international and national agencies and organizations to give support for women in development. This latter discussion has yet to be entered into the literature on women.

As already stated, national policy and strategy must precede organization of Extension Services and implementation of Extension programs in favor of women. Nevertheless, institutional actions may form the basis for Extension policy and strategies as these refer to women farmers and women in Extension Services. With this thought in mind, we propose seven Extension actions.

Extension actions that serve to foster agricultural productivity, gender equity, and rural poverty alleviation aren't necessarily problem-free. In each case, constraints and potential problems must be recognized, prepared for, and overcome so the objective of empowering women through these means can be accomplished. Here are our recommendations for action:13

1. Program development based on specific situational realities and diagnosed needs of women in agriculture.

2. Programs based on needs assessment data disaggregated by gender.

3. Women having access to Extension Services and being involved in Extension's program development and planning, especially women farmers.14

4. Evaluation examining Extension program adoption rates, use, and impact relating to women in agriculture.

5. Women recruited as professional and paraprofessional staff and field agents for Extension Services, where appropriate.

6. Inservice Extension training of female staff in management skills and agents in technical and information-transfer skills.

7. Extension Services forming linkages with rural women's groups for collaborative agricultural development efforts.

These actions require at a minimum that Extension: (1) develop client profiles of women farmers as target groups, (2) determine and consider the levels of participation for women farmers in Extension programming, (3) calculate the production/yield risk factors of women farmers, and (4) ensure appropriate technology and practices to serve women farmers. Most of all, imagination is needed to overcome the socioeconomic, political, and cultural barriers that operate against women being integrated into mainstream societies.

The case for actively integrating women into mainstream agricultural development programs rests on three basic tenets: (1) productivity goals are unlikely to be met unless women are factored into program schemes, (2) subsistence agriculture has suffered, to the detriment of family (and national) well-being and health as a result of traditional development programs, and (3) as a net effect of typical development programs women are worse off, with fewer resources (including time and wealth), and added burdens of extra work (and the implications for decreased health) at the same time that men become better off.

The response of the development community has been shaped first and foremost by the issue of productivity. This isn't inappropriate despite the fact that some organizations such as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (currently known as the World Bank) are chiefly set up to engender economic development and have historically had an emphasis on increasing economic growth in target countries.

In line with the concern for productivity, we've proposed seven action recommendations for the development of agricultural Extension Services. Some of these actions are already being taken by some countries. Others are being rhetorically adopted, but have yet to be implemented. Still others are a long way from becoming the initiatives they deserve to be.

While the action recommendations listed in this article aren't without their constraints and problems, it's only through efforts in these directions that ways of improving them can be learned. We believe that Extension is an important vehicle for integrating women into official development efforts and empowering them as human beings.

1. M. Berger, V. DeLancey, and A. Mellencamp, Bridging the Gender Gap in Agricultural Extension (1984).

2. M. Berger, V. DeLancey, and A. Mellencamp, Bridging the Gender Gap in Agricultural Extension (1984) and J. Jiggins, Gender-Related Impacts and the Work of the International Agriculture Research Centers (1985).

3. W. C. Baum and S. M. Tolbert, Investing in Development: Lessons of World Bank Experience (1985); Carloni, Integrating Women in Agricultural Projects (1983); World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development, "Follow-Up Staff Seminar on Rural Development" (1983).

4. M. Baxter, "Emerging Priorities for Developing Countries in Agricultural Extension" in Rivera, W. M. & Schram, S. G. (eds.), Agricultural Extension Worldwide (1987); The World Bank, Agricultural Extension: The Next Step (1990).

5. W. M. Rivera, Plan of Action for Establishment of The Rural Agriculture Development Authority (FAO Technical Report ESH:UTF/JAM/015/JAM (1990).

6. The World Bank, Agricultural Extension: The Next Step (1990).

7. S. K. Araji, Rural Iraqi Women and Extension Centers (1986).

8. The World Bank, Agricultural Extension: The Next Step (1990).

9. T. Spens, Studies on Agricultural Extension Involving Women, 1986; The World Bank, Agricultural Extension: The Next Step (1990).

10. The World Bank, Operations Evaluation Department, Agricultural Research and Extension: An Evaluation of the World Bank's Experience (1988).

11. A Carloni, Integrating Women in Agricultural Projects (1983).

12. R. Joekes, Women and Export Manufacturing (1987).

13. These actions don't include pre-service training programs since such programs are not directly under the control of extension services, and often fall under aegis of the ministry of agriculture.

14. These farmers include: (1) women farm owners or managers, (2) women farm partners sharing responsibility for agricultural production with another household member, (3) women farm workers,and (4) women agricultural wage laborers.