Summary
This chapter highlights the main issues and topics of the paper and is intended as a preamble to the recommendations in Chapter 5.
Women’s role and their dependence on livestock
Despite their considerable involvement and contribution, women’s
role in livestock production has been underestimated, undervalued and
widely ignored. This is due to a paternalistic bias from men but also
from women, who are often conditioned by their culture and society to
undervalue their own worth. In addition, information on the role of women
in livestock production often obscures the actual contribution of women,
because of the biases of the respondents, the biases of surveyors and
biases inherent in the definitions of employment, e.g., informal versus
formal, or establishing a minimum number of hours of work to qualify as
economically active (Morton 1990). Women’s role in agriculture and
livestock production is better documented in sub-Saharan Africa than elsewhere
(Safilios-Rothschild 1983).
Most societies, and development planners, have a standardized and idealized opinion on division of labour in agricultural production. For example, in Africa it is thought that men take care of cattle and clear and plough the land, while women do all other arable tasks and take care of small ruminants, chickens, pigs and other animals. In fact, there are many variations between ethnic groups and regions, and between households because of practical conditions such as availability of labour, amount of workload, etc. An understanding of the real situation is vital to the development effort.
Although the majority of livestock raisers are agropastoralists, other systems can also be found around the world: transhumant, intensive crop and livestock, peri-urban, and a few not-so-obvious systems. The livestock systems can be broadly divided into four categories of increasing responsibility based on division of labour by gender and age: They are: (i) those systems in which there is no involvement by women with livestock; (ii) those in which women are responsible only for processing livestock products; (iii) those in which women are responsible for managing and processing small stock and other animals kept at the homestead; or (iv) those in which women are responsible for managing and herding large stock and other animals, and processing the products (see Chapter 2).
It is extremely difficult to make generalizations on the typical role of women in livestock production, even on a regional basis. Instead, this paper attempts to distinguish a series of typical patterns, but only for the sake of analysis. Field operations must take into account the unevenness of the patterns, and study each case individually.
Transhumant systems in Africa and Asia rarely assign women major herding and management responsibilities for large stock (cattle or camels). (This is not the case with transhumants in the Andes of Latin America.) In Africa it is common to find that women are responsible for small stock, calves, poultry or sick animals kept at the homestead;for checking the grazing animals as they return from pasture; for watering and feeding animals; for producing feed; for generally taking care of all animals; and for milking animals and processing the milk. Animal health is often the responsibility of both men and women. Although women’s role as nurturers and healers often gives them the primary traditional responsibility in animal care, men usually control the use of modern veterinary care. In arid and semi-arid areas, women’s workloads in livestock production can often be higher than those of the average farmer.
It is often assumed that the management of cattle, being a more complex task, determines the management of small stock in economies where both are important elements for food production (e.g., Hjort 1976a). As a result, the focus is on the men who are often (but not always) the cattle managers. However, there is growing evidence that small stock management (often under the care of women) is an important activity in itself. It can determine such household strategies as siting of the compound and the degree of mobility, it often constitutes a larger and more flexible share of the economic portfolio, and it is relied upon in times of crisis and stress.
With few exceptions, women usually provide the labour and have the right to use animals but do not own animals or make decisions regarding them or their disposal. Even when they are owners, they often do not have absolute control over the animals’ management and disposal. The livestock ownership pattern and status of women appears to depend on social class, but in general it is considered a ‘secondary right’ and inferior to that of men, and thus vulnerable to erosion, especially in times of stress.
Three domains in which women seem to be universally involved is poultry, the raising of other ‘minor’ animals and milk production and processing, although not all women control the sale of milk and its products. Poultry and minor animal production is more common among middle-class pastoralists than among the rich, who are not interested, or the poor, who would be interested but lack the time or resources to start up such an endeavour.
Very little is known about peri-urban intensive livestock production systems, but they appear to be a growing phenomenon, especially in Africa and the Middle East, where households consider livestock an important supplementary income. In these systems, it is usually women who manage the livestock, hiring workers since they cannot rely on traditional relationships that normally exist in rural communities.
The actual division of labour in pastoral communities often differs significantly from what is considered the ‘ideal’ or cultural norm. What women actually do depends on labour availability, the nature of the task, the intensity to which people adhere to roles, settlement patterns, possibility of cooperation between neighbours, the development phase of the family and other economic considerations. Women are called upon to perform men’s roles much more frequently than the reverse.
Although women represent half of the world’s population and one third of the official labour force, they receive only 1% of the total global income and own less than 1% of the world’s property. In a given household, a woman often has less income, less wealth and less nutrition than a man, and yet the household is mostly, if not solely, dependent on that woman’s labour for the generation of products and income. In general, men tend to spend less of their income than do women on the household and on children (see Appendix 1).
In most pastoral societies, livestock is a main contributor to household nutrition, mostly in the form of milk. Milk and meat together contribute 40-90% of the energy intake of pastoral households. A consequence of sedenterization, drought and land degradation has been decreasing herd sizes and a switch in the diet from livestock products to grains and pulses. As a result, there has been increasing malnutrition among children and women. In addition, where milk is scarce and more of it is sold to raise cash income, women are more inclined than men to lower their consumption. A typical response by women, this self-sacrifice increases women’s nutritional vulnerability in times of drought, civil strife and other stresses.
There are a number of pertinent exceptions to the ‘rule’ that men control the sale and disposal of livestock and its products. Women in Africa, Asia and Latin America are involved in petty trading, especially of milk products, and also in the short and long-distance trade in live animals. In these cases, women have complete control over the revenues generated by such sales. Compared with sales of live animals, marketing dairy products in a pastoral situation may offer a more significant and reliable income than is often realized. Such trade typically provides up to one third of a household’s income, and it is a regular income, while live animal and other product sales are more intermittent. Greater recognition is needed about how traditional dairy systems meet demand, and more research should be undertaken on how the systems can be improved. The bias toward animal off-take in most development projects must be reconsidered.
Poultry-raising may be undertaken with a view towards using fowl as gifts, as food and as a source of cash income. Poultry and smallstock-raising may be promoted as a way for poor rural women to break the cycle of poverty.
In recent years most pastoral and agropastoral communities have been adversely affected by steadily increasing problems associated with land degradation on common property: land and labour shortages. Land shortages are felt by women in particular because they affect not only livestock productivity but also access to resources such as fuel wood, traditional wild foods and medicines. Land degradation has been linked to settlement, expropriation of rangelands, and to overgrazing on remaining rangelands (see Appendix 2).
Another result of labour and land shortages is that some of the traditional techniques of animal husbandry and range management are no longer practised. Animals are not taken as far out to graze as before, resulting in overgrazing around settlements. Labour shortages make herd-splitting (the division of animals according to sex, type or age in order to take full advantage of ecological niches), which requires more labour, more difficult. Households may decide to change to less-labour-demanding animals, such as sheep and goats, but only in areas where demand for such products is high. However, un-herded and uncontrolled small ruminants such as these are just as destructive to rangelands as large animals.
The migration of men in order to find seasonal work (especially in Latin America and Asia), and the displacement of pastoral households (especially in Africa) increase women’s role in livestock production and their workloads. This ever-increasing trend is little understood and not recognized by government officials or extension workers. The provision of services and external inputs (both technical and financial) bypasses women in all three continents and has not kept up with women’s increasing role in livestock production.
19. Government policies continue to encourage male-oriented activities: beef production, large commercial dairy centres and large-scale cattle trade. To reach women, focus should be placed on small-scale activities, milk-based products, small ruminants and other smallstock.
Women’s indigenous technical knowledge
Indigenous technical knowledge has long been the subject of anthropological research but it is only recently that researchers have begun exploring the possibility of harnessing ITK in development. IFAD, for example, is increasingly using ITK in its projects and programmes as fundamental to their design and implementation. The value of ITK is in providing a basis for designing technical and managerial solutions to local problems, and in enhancing communication between local people and development workers. Several methods are now available that allow ITK to be practically applied. These include rapid rural appraisal (RRA), participatory (‘enriching’) research and client-oriented research and extension.
Evidence shows that although the general concepts and principles of ITK are shared by both men and women in a community, the details of ITK are very much gender based. Women and men may have different ways of using the same ITK, of classifying it and of preserving and transferring it. Access to ITK is also tied to membership in various gender and age-based groups.
Women have detailed knowledge of the dynamics of their ecosystem and of the influence of livestock on it. They can monitor the condition of ranges through milk production, an animal’s appearance, wool production, manure production, etc. Women frequently have a detailed knowledge of water resources, including their quality and quantity. They understand certain animal diseases, symptoms, pharmacology and cures, and herding practices designed to reduce disease incidence. Such specialized technical knowledge is tied to the division of labour in the society, and can be found in the fields of animal husbandry and care, animal anatomy, animal biology and reproduction, animal fodder production, and in range management, feed management, milk production and processing, and in the processing of other livestock produce.
ITK can be divided into descriptive, analytical and experimental knowledge. Far less is known about women’s ITK than about men’s because most studies of ITK often do not differentiate according to gender. More studies are needed on analytical and experimental ITK, particularly in the fields of natural resource management, fodder collection and production, meat and hide processing, husbandry of non-ruminant animals, water management and animal health. In addition, special attention should be paid to detecting changes in ITK resulting from such constraints as the breakdown of traditional systems and development interventions.
Appropriateness of the development process
After decades of development efforts aimed at women, the process continues to ignore women, partly because of local and cultural biases but also because of the attitude of development planners. The challenge is not to integrate women into the development process, as was thought throughout the United Nations Decade for Women (1975-85), but to recognize that they are already principal contributors to the traditional economy and, through that recognition, elaborate concrete actions to increase their productivity and standard of living.
More funds need to be devoted to gender studies that would analyse the roles and responsibilities of women in livestock development, and would seek ways of increasing women’s participation. In particular, emphasis should be placed on identifying traditional women’s organizations or groups, and leadership systems. Women’s groups cannot be a panacea, since there are places and occasions where women prefer to work alone. However, group structures can be the basis for using improved technological and managerial solutions, in a cost-effective manner, to reach the maximum number of women in the community.
Apart from technical and material inputs, making capital available to women so that they can develop income-generating enterprises has shown considerable developmental dividends. Small-scale credit, provided on soft terms and tailored to women’s particular needs and constraints (e.g., illiteracy), has been shown to be effectively used by individuals and groups of women.
Appropriateness of the technology
Up until now, most technical solutions have ignored women’s actual needs, even though thought to be directed specifically at women. Most improvements designed to intensify the production system, such as zero grazing, fodder production, improved breeds, etc., have also increased women’s workloads. Appropriate technologies must be designed taking into account not only women’s workloads, but also the technology’s potential impact on their status and economic control over resources and property.
A review of technological packages shows that the most promising for women are those using improved goats (dairy and meat), improved poultry, ‘minor’ animals (such as small ruminants, rabbits, etc.) and micro-breeds of ruminants for poor and smallholder women. Bee and silkworm-keeping are lucrative alternatives in Asia. Larger operations, e.g., women’s groups, can focus on dairy cattle, large broiler operations, cooperative milk collection and processing, etc. Biotechnology has the potential to improve the quality of animals in developing countries, but it continues to be beyond the means of most smallholders and the capabilities of rural extension services.
Gender bias is perhaps most evident in field operations where extension agents are usually male and will not or cannot communicate with women. In the long term, more training needs to be given directly to women (in their villages), and to female extension agents. Direct training should concentrate on literacy, business and group management and appropriate technologies. Where there are female extension agents in livestock production, experience has shown that they are accepted equally by men and women in rural communities. Women extension agents should be trained in all technical aspects of animal production, not just in poultry and milk production, as tends to be the case. In the short run, all extension agents, women and men, should be trained in gender analysis, participatory techniques and appropriate livestock systems.
The lack of women in the field of livestock production extends all the way to professional women, who constitute an extremely small minority in animal science, range and pasture science and veterinary medicine. Part of the problem is self-inflicted; few women choose these fields for higher education. But it is also partly the result of bias in college entrance and eventually in employment procedures.
