THEME: Increases in available land and much higher rice yields seem to have had little impact on women's workload, even though women do most of the work in rice cultivation.

The IFAD supported Lowland Agricultural Development Programme (LADEP) in Gambia is the first phase of a longer-term effort of community-driven development of lowland areas. The goal is sustainable improvement of traditional rice production in order to enhance food security for impoverished rural households. Rice growing in the programme areas is primarily done by women. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) conducted a participatory rapid assessment of the LADEP in December, 2000. The focus of the assessment was on various dimensions of emerging impact, including on gender relations. Questions of division of labour in rice production and consumption, and the impact of the project on women's workload, were among those reviewed.

The production and consumption situation in the project area is quite complex. There are five different types of rice ecologies. Traditional swamp and rainfed rice can be either maruo or kamangyango production and consumption units. These distinctions cut across the different rice ecologies.

• Maruo fields account for the majority of rice fields. Produce is earmarked for subsistence of the production unit. For lowland rice, this production unit is the sinkiro (a group of people who eat from the same cooking pot - usually a wife and her dependent children)

• Kamanyango fields are personal plots of women and young males, which they control and use as an own-account activity. Produce can be disposed of as they like.

With the exception of pump irrigated rice (almost always controlled by men), traditional lowland rice is mainly women's responsibility, but with variation among ethnic groups, particularly in terms of control of produce:

• Among the Mandinka both maruo and kamangyango rice production is done by women. The woman sinkiro head controls the maruo rice. Men rarely assist women with their crops and women do not assist men with their upland crops, even during busy weeding and harvesting periods.
• Among the Jola women are the main rice growers. Most maruo rice is controlled by a male sinkiro head.
• Among the Fula and Wolof, who have only begun growing rice in the past two decades, the gender division of labour and control of the rice crop tends to be more flexible. Rice is still mainly grown by women but men are likely to contribute. The maruo rice crop tends to be controlled by the male sinkiro head.

Because women provide most of the labour for rice growing, an increase in women's workload was a recognized LADEP risk. The programme plan anticipated that women would provide 80% of the labour for construction (estimated at 200 labour days per km of dike), and they would acquire an expanded area for rice cultivation. Under actual implementation, 65% of the workforce for dike construction was female and total person days per hectare averaged 190, but with wide variations. The assessment also found that the programme has reclaimed an average of 0.22 ha land reclaimed per benefiting farmer. But suprisingly, only five of the eleven impact assessment sites reported an increase in women's workload. In another five sites, women actually insisted that their workload had been reduced. Where workload had increased, this was attributable to expansion of the area under rice cultivation among certain ethnic groups (Fula and Wolof) which were not as heavily involved in rice growing prior to LADEP. Where it was viewed as having decreased, reasons given were:

• Controlled flooding made possible by the dikes reduces land preparation time by 1/3 because it makes the soil moister.
• Swamp access bridges which have been constructed reduce travel time by as much as an hour in each direction.
• Tractor ploughing by the project reduces land preparation time.

There may also be other explanations for the findings. The assessment found that overall, the number of rice growers was increasing rapidly, with increases in different villages ranging from 50% to 200%. Men, co-wives and daughters are taking up rice farming on their own account. As a rule, each household has more than one, and sometimes as many as five rice farmers. Therefore, at least some of the new or improved land is being farmed by men or women other than the original women rice growers. Consequently, the rice cultivation workload is being shared among a larger number of people, with men playing a more active role.

At this stage, much of the needed data on changes in land access and yields was not available to the assessment because of weaknesses in the monitoring and evaluation system. Future collection of this type of information, disaggregated by gender, will help to explain the findings on workload and give a better understanding of distribution of benefits.

Adapted from:

FAO Investment Center, February 2001, THE GAMBIA: Lowlands Agricultural Development Programme - Rapid Participatory Impact Assessment. Rome

Hot links Rural poverty in the Gambia IFAD operations in the Gambia