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WOMEN AND FOOD SECURITY: A STUDY OF VEGETABLE FARMING IN CALABAR
METROPOLIS
BY
CHARLES BASSEY
(Reg. Number SOC/MSC/98/007)
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF CALABAR
CALABAR
To
GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF CALABAR
CALABAR
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER OF SCIENCE DEGREE IN SOCIOLOGY OF
DEVELOPMENT
JUNE 2002
CERTIFICATION I certify that this thesis on Women and Food Security: A Study of Vegetable
Farming in Calabar Metropolis is an original work, written by:
CHARLES BASSEY, JR
and was carried out under my supervision.
Name:…………………………. Signature:…………………..
Date:……………………………
DECLARATION
This is to declare that this is an original research work carried out by
CHARLES BASSEY, (REG. No. SOC/MSC/98/007) on WOMEN AND
FOOD SECURITY: A STUDY OF VEGETABLE FARMING IN CALABAR
METROPOLIS under full supervision and in accordance with the
requirements of the Department of Sociology and the Graduate School of
the University of Calabar, Calabar for the award of Master of Science
Degree in Sociology of Development.
Name……………………… Signature……………. Date………… (Supervisor) Qualification/Status…………………………………………... Name……………………. Signature…………….. Date………….. (Head of Department) Qualification/Status…………………………………………... Name……………………. Signature…………….. Date………….. (Graduate School Representative) Qualification/Status…………………………………………... Name……………………. Signature…………….. Date………….. (External Examiner) Qualification/Status…………………………………………...
DEDICATION
TO
‘MA BA
WHO LEFT BEHIND
A SMALL FRUITFUL GARDEN
UNHARVESTED
FROM WHICH OTHERS MAY FEED
AND IN THAT
HER LABOUR BE FULFILLED
Thanks, Mum.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The burden of successfully carrying out this research never rested on
me. It rested solely on the Triune God who chose to do it in collaboration
with my academic guide, Dr. J.O. Charles. It is therefore, with thanks that I
acknowledge God’s mercy and grace and the excellent scholarship which
my academic guide has demonstrated in bringing this work to fruition. My
other academic formators deserve mention: Professor J.G. Ottong, Prof.
Enukoha, Drs G. Ugal, S.U. Ezenibe, A.U. Akpan and Mr. Simeon Ering.
Great debts are owed Dr. (Mrs.) Anthonia Monkom, JP, for her
motherly role and my other colleagues whose concern freed me from the
burden of daily anxieties: Comrade Ini Ekpo, Mr. John Irem, Aunty Imelda
Effiom, Mrs. Tessy Osaji, Mrs. Mbang Ikpeme, Mrs. Nnenna Ukonu, Emeka
Kalu and Afi Peter Ipole. I wish to also acknowledge the indispensable
contribution of the staff of International Institute of Tropical Agriculture
(IITA), Ibadan, University of Ibadan, University of Calabar and Women in
Nigeria (WIN), Cross River State whose rich resources enriched my
literature.
Thankfully, I acknowledge the prayers of many from whom I have
drawn immense spiritual and material strength viz, Padre Tony Bassey, Sr
Tin Betiku, Aunty Ekaette, Ekei Effiom, Ima Akpaidiok, Mary Ita, Idang
Eyonsa, Ukwo Monday, Onyeka Okoli, Benjamin Umoh, Mercy Donatus
and Emmanuel Eyonsa, the last two having also served as field assistants.
I cannot fail to acknowledge the co-operation of my respondents, the
women farmers, who were indispensable to the success of this research.
Thanks are due to the two State Presidents of Nigeria Union of Local
Government Employees (NULGE) I have worked with: Comrade B.B.
Okosin of Cross River State for supporting me and Comrade Lucky Gospel
Ewa of Bayelsa State for his understanding and allowing me the use of his
computer whenever I needed it. I also thank Mr. Alfred Osim, Utibe, Lizzy
and Glory for their immense assistance in producing the work in its
complete format producing the final work on record time.
Finally, mention must be made of two women who have played dual
significant roles in my life and in the life of this work. One is my Mum whose
last words and commission motivated me. The other is Nsini Ibok whose
love is prayer and belief my strength. For others not mentioned here, I
remain grateful still.
Thanks and God bless.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page …. … … …
Certification … … … … i
Declaration … … … … ii
Dedication … … … … iii
Acknowledgement … … … iv
Table of Contents … … … vii
List of Tables … … … … x
List of Figures … … … … xii
List of plates … … … … xiii
Acronyms and Abbreviations … … xiv
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study …. … 1
1.2 Statement of the Research Problem … 8
1.3 Objectives of the Study … … 12
1.4 Justification of the Study … … 13
1.5 Scope of the Study … … … 15
1.6 Definition of Concepts … … … 16
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 Women and Food Security … … 20
2.2 Vegetable Farming … … … 32
2.3 Urban Farming … … … 37
2.4 Constraints Faced by Women Farmers … 43
2.5 Farming Systems in Sub-Sahara Africa … 55
2.6 Theoretical Framework … … … 63
2.6.1 Human Rights Perspective: The Right to Food Security 66
2.6.2 FAO Model of Women’s Food-Related Activities 67
2.7 Summary of Chapter … … … 90
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research Design … … … 93
3.2 Sample Design … … … 94
3.3 Methodology … … … 95
3.3.1 Observation … … … 96
3.3.2 Survey … … … … 97
3.4 Methods of Data Analysis and Hypotheses Testing 98
3.5 Field Problems and Limitations … … 98
3.6 Hypotheses … … … 100
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS
4.1 Date Presentation, Analysis and Discussion … 102
4.2 Presentation and Analysis of Data … … 104
4.3 Test of Hypotheses … … … 146
4.4 Discussion … … … … 155
4.4.1 Demographic and Socio-Economic Characteristics of Vegetables Farmers in Calabar Metropolis … 155
4.4.2 Farming Practices in Calabar Metropolis … 159 4.4.3 Importance of Vegetable Farming for Household
Food Security in Calabar … … 184 4.4.4 Constraints Faced by the Vegetable Farmers … 188 CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1 Summary … … … … 193 5.2 Recommendations … … … 195 5.3 Conclusion … … … … 198 References Appendix “A”: Interview Schedule
LIST OF TABLES
Table 4.2.1 Frequency distribution of respondents by Age … … … 104
Table 4.2.2 Frequency distribution of respondents
by marital status … … 107 Table 4.2.3 Frequency distribution of respondents
by ethnic group … … 109 Table 4.2.4 Frequency distribution of respondents
by level of education … … 112 Table 4.2.5 Frequency distribution of respondents
by additional occupation … 115 Table 4.2.6 Frequency distribution of vegetables cultivated
… … 117 Table 4.2.7 Frequency distribution of respondents
by length of tenure (in years) of involvement in farming activities in Calabar … … … 121
Table 4.2.8 Frequency distribution of respondents approximated
number of hours spent on farm work daily … … 123
Table 4.2.9 Frequency distribution table of
respondents by number of plots cultivated … … 125
Table 4.2.10 Frequency distribution of respondents
by sources of farm labour usually employed … … … 127
Table 4.2.11 Frequency Distribution of Farmers’ Preference for Employment by Sector 129
Table 4.2.12 Frequency distribution of respondents
by approximated distance between home and farm (in kilometers) … 132
Table 4.2.13 Problems encountered in farming 134 Table 4.2.14 Ever had access to extension services 136 Table 4.2.15 Frequency distribution of respondents receiving support
from their husbands (Married category only) … 138
Table 4.2.16 Frequency distribution of respondents
by family’s vegetable consumption rate 140 Table 4.2.17 Frequency distribution of respondents
by primary sources of food … 142 Table 4.2.18 Viability of primary source(s) of food 144 Table 4.3.1 5x3 contingency X2 Analysis of the
impact of Women’s ethnic origin on their involvement in farming activities … 147
Table 4.3.2 4x3 contingency X2 analysis of the
impact of marital status on the number of times members of household feed in a day … … … 149
Table 4.3.3 4x3 contingency x2 analysis of the
impact of land ownership on women involvement in farming activities … 151
Table 4.3.4 Pearson production moment correlation coefficient (r)
analysis of the relationship between women and their household accessibility to food … 153
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.6.1.1 A normative model for food security 70 Figure 2.6.2.1 A model of women’s food related
Activities … … … 81 Figure 4.2.1 A histogram showing the ages of
farmers within the study group … 105 Figure 4.2.2 A pie chart showing the different
sectors of respondents by ethnic group … … 110
Figure 4.2.3 A pie chart with sectors showing
respondents level of education … 113 Figure 4.2.4 A pie chart showing the
vegetables cultivated by farmers … 118 Figure 4.2.6 A polynomial graph showing the
No. of plots cultivated by farmers within the study frame … 129
LIST OF PLATES
Plate 1: A planting surface of Tefaria Occidentlis 161 Plate 2: Ridges of Telfaria 163 Plate 3: Mature pods of the Telfaria 165 Plate 4: Tilled bed prepared for planting Talinium
Triangulare 167 Plate 5: Beds Talinium Triangulare 169 Plate 6: Mounds of Talinium Triangulare 171 Plate 7: A typical inter-cropped farmland 173 Plate 8: Women tying vegetable bundles for sale 175
ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
ACGS - Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme CBN - Central Bank of Nigeria CBOs - Community Based Organisations CPSU - Communist Party of the Soviet Union CRS - Cross River State EFDI - Enterprise for Development International FAO - Food and Agriculture Organisation FGN - Federal Government of Nigeria FOS - Federal Office of Statistics GATT - General Agreements on trade and Tariffs GDP - Gross Domestic Product GGDP - Ghana-Cida Grains Development Project GNP - Gross National Product ICRW - International Center for Research on Women IFC - The International Famine Centre IFPRI - International Food Policy Research Institute IITA - International Institute of Tropical Agriculture IMF - International Monetary Fund NGOs - Non-Governmental Organisations NISER - Nigeria Institute of Economic and Social Research SADCC - Southern African Development Coordination
Conference UN - United Nations UNECA - United Nations Economic Commission of Africa UNIFEM - United Nations development Fund for Women WIA - Women in Africa WTO - World Trade Organisation
ABSTRACT
This study is an attempt to determine some sociological factors in
household food security such as gender, marital status, ethnic origin,
income, education, occupation and access to resources. The role of
women in vegetable farming was focused upon as justified by feminization
of food crop production and food related activities. The findings of the study
were derived from eighty-two observation elements through the use of
quantitative and qualitative instruments. Using relevant statistical test for
analysis. It was discovered that there are significant associations between
ethnic origin, land ownership and farming, significant relationship between
women and household accessibility to food and between marital status and
the number of times household feed in a day. Vegetable production was
found to be of high socio-economic importance for the urban and their
households even though produced under existing constraints. The
substantive findings of this study, however, have policy implications for
enhancing household food security in Nigeria.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Women represent an indispensable human resource within the matrix
of household food security. In Africa, as in most developing countries, this
indispensability is peculiar when viewed within the context of feminization
of food crop production (Muntemba 1982, Ghana-Cida Grains Development
Project, 1993, Ezumah and Domenico 1995, United Nations Economic
Commission for Africa 1996).
The matrix of food security raises complex questions about how
global food sufficiency can adequately and sustainably respond to
household food insufficiency in the developing world. Perhaps, it can be
argued that when Mahatma Ghandi affirmed early in the twentieth century
that “the world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for
everyone’s greed,” he had neither the benefit of facts and figure nor was he
only concerned with food. Nevertheless, later and successive facts and
figures have verified his claim, at least with regards to food:
Globally there is enough food for all. Average food availability rose from 2290 calories per person per day in 1961 – 63 to 2700 calories in 1988 – 90 despite the world’s population increasing by some 1800 million (Food and Agricultural Organisation 1992; cf. Pinstrup-Andersen 1994).
Irrespective of the above, we need to understand that global food
availability does not guarantee household food security, particularly in food-
deficit countries. Food production and distribution, as Charlton (1984:74)
remarked, are political, as well as economic questions, and as such, they
are subject to the policies of numerous institutions. These institutions, apart
from national governments, include private corporations which may control
the production or distribution of a particular product in a region, and
international institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and General Agreements on Trade and Tariffs/World Trade
Organisation (GATT/WTO) which also influence food production and
distribution by their policies.
At the root of the food crisis is poverty. Whether in the rich or poor
countries, food security exists whenever there are extremely poor or
severely handicapped people. In a publication of the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (1992), it was revealed that three types
of countries are particularly prone to national food security problems. The
first is the type that the average food consumption level is very low, the
second is one that has large fluctuations in food supplies coupled with low
consumption and the third type has large numbers of very poor people.
Poverty comes in at the root of food crisis because food security
entails a condition of stable food supplies that are both physically and
economically accessible to all. In other words, the household must have
both access to the food that meets its nutritional requirements and the
means to purchase same to be considered food-secure. In an event which
this is not possible, it is likely that the household exists and subsists within
an impoverished resource base and has either a weak purchasing power
(i.e. low income) to procure needed food or cannot produce its own food to
meet its needs.
The three types of countries particularly prone to national food
security problem as identified above are overwhelmingly represented in
developing regions of the world (Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and
Caribbean) than in any other. It is at the regional and national levels of
assessment that the food-deficit status of human population becomes more
and more pronounced.
According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (1987), world per
caput supplies (measured as dietary energy) rose from 2340 to 2630
kcal/day during the period between 1961 – 63 and 1978 – 81(i.e. 12%
increase). Regional statistics from same source reveal that Africa’s share
grew from 2120 to 2260, far East 1940 to 2160, Latin America 2370 to
2620, Near East 2230 to 2840 within the same period among the
developing countries. In the developed countries’ category, North
America’s share grew from 3280 to 3620, Western Europe 3150 to 3440,
while Oceania’s dropped from 3160 to 3150 and that of Western Europe
and former USSR grew from 3170 to 3420. In all, most of the decline per
caput dietary-energy supplies (DES) took place in African countries.
Sub-Saharan Africa, hitherto a net exporter of food until the early
1960s, increasingly became a net importer of food. As revealed in The
State of Food and Agriculture 1991 by Food and Agricultural Organisation
(FAO), the Sub-Saharan region’s per caput food production actually
declined since the early 1970s while the region’s overall food supplies as a
whole declined from 210kg (wheat equivalent) per caput in 1970, to 179kg
per caput in 1980. The situation deteriorated further between 1980 – 1984
with agricultural production growth decreasing from slightly over 3% in
1981 to less than 1% in 1984 and thereafter appreciated during the second
half of the 1980s by rising up to 6% in 1988. This, however, failed to keep
pace with the high population growth of many countries (Food and
Agricultural Organisation, 1992:108).
Following vacillating domestic food production, there was startling
increase in food imports from the 1970s, and by the mid-1980s, commercial
food imports were the equivalent of almost 20 percent of the region’s export
earning (FAO 1992: 107). As the rate of food imports increased, various
structural and food aid programmes were forced upon countries of the
region. It was during this period that Nigeria went from “food-sufficiency to
import dependency under the various structural adjustment and food aid
programmes forced upon it” to become sub-Sahara’s largest food importer
(Shiva 1996: 22).
The startling increase in the volume of Nigeria’s food importation is
not unconnected with the growth of the oil sector in the country. In the
1960s, the agricultural sector contributed about 63 percent of the country’s
foreign exchange (Andrae and Beckman, 1985, cited in Awe and Ezumah
1991:1987). This sharply declined as petroleum production increased,
accounting for 25 percent of GDP, over 80 percent of foreign exchange
receipts and 70 percent of budgetary revenues of Nigeria (Saito, 1994: 10),
tending to make the country’s yearly per capita GNP fluctuate in close
symmetry with fluctuations in global oil prices.
Given the fluctuations in oil prices, and in spite of the poverty profile
(from 28.1% in 1980 to 46.3% in 1985, dropping slightly to 42.7% in 1992
and rising sharply to 65.6% in 1996 cf. Awoseyila 1999: 31), and the drastic
decline in the contribution of agricultural sector to Nigeria’s GDP, adequate
response to the dynamics of food crop production and supply within the
country holds promise for creating food-secure livelihoods in Nigeria.
The introduction of colonialism having led to incorporation of the
African economy into the world capitalist economy through the former’s
infrastructural support for the production and exploitation of cash crops,
there was a shift from, and neglect of, food crop production (Ezumah 1990:
1). One result of this was that, within the emergent cash crop economy,
women were further deprived economic opportunities. This might have
been partly attributable to their lack of access (compared to men) to
productive resources such as credit, land, technological innovations in
agriculture, and extension education (Awe and Ezumah 1991: 187).
A valuation of the structure of economic activities in Nigeria in terms
of who spends more time working reveals that the average daily hours of
women in agriculture and non-agriculture activities amount up to 9.0 and
5.0 as against men’s 7.0 and 1.5 hours respectively (Saito 1994: 21). No
doubt, women who live in rural areas, who are heads of households and
those with large families and corresponding non-agricultural domestic
chores to perform, carry out a greater part of these activities.
Coupled with their inaccessibility to productive resources as
compared to men, women are subjected to the strain of providing for their
families in “an environment of worsening food insecurity which has implied
reduced availability of food and higher prices” (Chole 1995, quoted in
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa 1996:47). Aside domestic
responsibilities, women spend their daily hours either managing the
compound or backyard garden, working full-scale on food crop production,
engaged in non-agricultural activities, or in a combination of these, all in a
bid to meet the food needs of their family members. As studies such as
Muntemba’s (1982) and Saito’s (1994) have shown, the situation is not
significantly different across sub-Sahara Africa. Given the foregoing,
therefore, this thesis argues women’s position as an indispensable human
resource within the matrix of household food security.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
Vegetable consumption, especially of the local leafy varieties, is a
primary constituent of the African food culture. In Nigeria, it is part of the
national diet. Among these varieties include the amaranthus, fluted
pumpkin, spinach, water-leaf, scent leaf, hot leaf, etc. As several studies
have shown, women dominate the production of these food crops (cf.
Muntemba: 1982, Wisner: 1988, Snyder: 1990, Carr: 1991, Awe and
Ezumah: 1991, Ezumah and Domenico: 1995). This production, apart from
ensuring household relishes, also provides the women with income, which
could be used in meeting other family needs.
In spite of the primary role women play in vegetable farming in order
to meet household and cultural food requirements, researchers have paid
little attention to their role in the production of leafy varieties. Data on
acreage and yields of vegetable production, if at all available in African
countries, refers exclusively to the so-called European types (e.g.
tomatoes, leeks, peas, French beans, eggplants, green peas, cauliflower,
radishes, asparagus and globe artichokes). This leaves the general reader
either with the misleading impression that these types are the only ones
grown in these countries, or that at least, they largely overshadow any
other kind (Food and Agriculture Organisation, 1969).
Available studies observe that much of women’s economic activities
in sub-Saharan Africa are performed in the rural areas where they are
mostly found, and more predominantly in the agricultural sector (Olayide
and Bello-Osagie 1980, Ogunwale and Hassan 1993). Other studies go on
to show that in the urban areas lesser percentage of women than men are
engaged in the formal sector employment while the majority of women are
in informal sector work such as petty trading, hair dressing, tailoring, soap-
making, beer brewing, street food enterprises (cf Federal Government of
Nigeria 1989, Buvinic and Mehra: 1990, United Nations: 1991, Sadik: 1991,
Saito: 1994). These findings fail to include women as urban farmers
therefore tending to imply that women provide no significant farm labour in
urban areas.
The compound garden, managed chiefly by women (Hahn 1986,
Food and Agriculture Organisation: 1992), and garden marketing, tend to
include certain types of traditional leafy vegetables in specialized market
gardening schemes. However, the individual small-scale producer with
limited know-how and means solely do this. These small-scale producers
who are undervalued and understudied are likely not to receive needed
inputs (such as credit, extension services, etc.) that could enhance their
productive activities. Yet, as the regular availability of quality produce of the
desired varieties remains their responsibility, these women have the
capacity to control the periodic scarcity and security of the food crops,
thereby further impacting on the food culture of the society.
By overlooking the farming activities of women in the urban area, and
the income accruing therefrom, significant variables determining household
food security and livelihood status are neither known nor explored. More
so, when we consider the fact that female-controlled income is more likely
to be spent on food and nutrition than male-controlled income (Kennedy:
1991, cited in von Braun et al, 1992:16).
It is conditions such as the foregoing that foster the argument that
women strive for food security under too often underprivileged conditions
(Food and Agriculture Organisation 1996: 6). Given that their role under
such conditions must be recognized and adequately responded to, the
following research questions become pertinent: what is the situation of
household food security? How does women’s involvement in vegetable
farming impact upon the scarcity/security of the food crop on the one hand
and on their family food security on the other? What is the structure of
women’s agricultural activities within the urban informal sector and what
constraints do women engaged in vegetable farming face? By seeking to
give empirical answers to the above questions, this research intends to
examine the role of women in striving for food security under too often
underprivileged conditions.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The following objectives were set for this study:
1. Investigate the status of household food security in Calabar and
related factors.
2. Examine women’s involvement in vegetable farming and supply in
Calabar with specific attention to the farming systems, distance
between home and farm, ownership, income derived and existing
constraints.
3. Find out the ethnic origin of these women farmers, their employment
status and activities towards household food security.
4. Explore the relationship between availability of land and farming in
Calabar.
5. Provide empirical grounds for gender-sensitive intervention in urban
farming and household food security in Calabar.
1.4 JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY
The justification of this study is rooted in the need to adequately
respond to the problem of food security and peculiar difficulties women face
in meeting their responsibilities as food providers in urban areas. As no
literature has yet been cited on women and vegetable farming in Calabar
this study takes the initiative that will later stimulate further specialized
researches to produce more concrete data on this problem. Given this
initiative, the justification of this study lies in its heuristic nature, implications
for policy, theory and research, and contribution to the body of data on
gender, food security and urban studies.
The concern for food is not borne primarily by its tradable value. It is
rather because food constitutes the basis of life and a fundamental
resource for active human existence. Creating food-secure livelihoods,
therefore, facilitates resourceful participation in human activity and social
existence. Introducing gender into the whole complex of food security is
relevant in underscoring the socio-culturally-constructed roles and
responsibilities which human beings assume in the provision of food. The
focus on women is important because of their peculiar vulnerability to
impoverished conditions and individual indispensability in meeting
household food security, particularly in developing countries.
The motivation to undertake a study of women’s farming activities in
urban area is particularly justified by the seeming disregard of women’s
agricultural activities in the urban areas of developing countries. The impact
of this disregard on their overall ability to meet their food provision role and
responsibilities is of concern to policy makers and development planners.
The study of green leaf vegetable is significant not only because they are
good sources of protein and minerals (Squire 1982: 13) widely consumed
in Calabar but also because their farming and supply, as observed, is
controlled by women. Studying this particular activity of women represents
a significant index of their contribution to the urban informal economy and
household food security, and therefore sustainable development in this
sector.
Finally, the importance of this research is also rooted in the peculiar
socio-economic situation in Nigeria. Any policy formulation or development
planning that overlook this sociological situation in Calabar in particular,
and in the country in general, portends influences which may negatively
erode positive aspect of the food culture, increasing hunger and starvation,
and eroding of individual ability to realize self-fulfillment and enjoy basic
human rights.
1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The foci of this thesis lie within its sociological boundaries. Variables
studied or observed within these boundaries are organised around the
following interrelated themes in order to appropriately circumscribe them
within manageable limits due to constraints of time and finance:
(a) Structures and status of household food security, giving consideration
to socio-economic and demographic factors facilitating or inhibiting it.
(b) Availability of and accessibility to inputs for vegetable farming giving
consideration to conditioning factors and women’s responses.
(c) The relationships between the urban situation and farming activities
giving consideration to gender role and compound gardening.
(d) The species of green leaf vegetables to be studied: water leaf
(Talinium Triangulare; Local name: mmo-mon-ikon), fluted pumpkin
(Telfaria Occidentalis; Local name: ikon-ubon), spinach (Amaranthus
hybridus; Local name: etiyun), hot leaf (Piper guineense; Local name:
etinkeni) and scent leaf (Ocimum sp; Local name: nton).
The locus of the study is Calabar, the capital city of Cross River
State. The units of analysis are women who own or participate in vegetable
farming and /or distribution of the food crop either on the full-time or part-
time basis for commercial or subsistence purposes. The analysis also
covers their farm plots and general farming activities. The total target
sample was one hundred (100) respondents.
1.6 DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS
The following concepts have been operationalized for use in this
study.
1. Cash Crop: a crop produced primarily for export to other countries,
e.g. cocoa, palm fruits, groundnut, etc.
2. Compound Garden: a cultivated plot within the physical boundaries of
a household’s abode or residence. Also referred to as
home/homestead garden/farm.
3. Food Crop: a crop produced primarily for consumption by the local
population rather than for export, e.g. maize, cassava, vegetables,
etc.
4. Food Security: access by all people at all times to enough food for an
active, healthy life, its two elements being the availability of food and
the ability to acquire it. This definition emphasizes the following:
(a) Access to food rather than the supply of food.
(b) Access by all people, implying particular attention to social
groups exposed to food.
(c) Availability of, and ability to acquire food.
1. Food Risk: the probability of experiencing inadequate access to food
as a result of environmental risk (that is, the probability of crop failure)
and/or income risk (that is, the probability of failing to earn enough)
(cf. Ellis, 1992:311).
2. Household: a relatively independent economic unit, composed of at
least two persons who may be biologically related or not, sharing a
common residence and responsible for its budgeting and catering.
(i) Household, Female Headed: a household where budgeting and
catering resources – covering food, health, shelter and education –
are provided by a woman who may be a single parent, divorced,
separated, widowed or married.
(ii) Household, Male Headed: a household where budgeting and catering
resources – covering food, health, shelter and education – are
provided by a man who may be a single parent, divorced, separated,
widowed or married.
(iii) Household, Jointly Headed: a household where budgeting and
catering resource – covering food, health, shelter and education are
jointly provided by both spouses whether both are co-habiting, jurally
married and living together or there is an absentee spouse.
(iv) Household, Headship of: that is, whether a household is female-
headed or male-headed or joint-headed.
1. Viable Food Procurement: the availability of sufficient resources to
cover other basic human needs other than food in order not to bring
the demand for food into conflict with demand for other needs.
2. Vegetables: usually annual food crops (that is, grown and harvested
within one year) which are grown under an intensive or gardening
system or sometimes gathered from the wild. The species include
leaves, tubers, roots, fruits, flowers, fungi, seeds and pods, etc.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In the ensuing section, two further aspects of the study are
presented. The first is a review of literature, discussed along topical themes
surrounding the purpose of the study and central variables in an attempt to
fill and shape the correct perspective of the present study. The second part
of the chapter discusses the theoretical qualities of some eclectic models
and their utility in serving the theoretical needs of the present empirical
work. This is followed by a summary of the entire chapter.
2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.1 WOMEN AND FOOD SECURITY
World’s Bank interest in poverty and hunger has made significant the
utility of food security as a household concept that helps to foster an
integrated approach to food and nutrition problems. According to the bank,
food security is
…. access by all people at all times to enough food for an active healthy life. It’s essential elements are the availability of
food and the ability to acquire it (1986; cited in Ellis 1992:310).
Recasting the two essential elements of food security in simpler
terms, it becomes clear that food security entails “ensuring that adequate
food supplies are available and households whose members suffer from
under-nutrition have the ability to acquire food, either by producing it
themselves or by being able to purchase it” (World Bank 1988:1).
At the household level, four dimensions need to be measured to
identify food security/insecurity, viz. The quantity of food, that is, the
repleteness of household stores; The quality of food, that is, the nutritional
value and safety of available foods; Psychological acceptability, that is,
food that is culturally acceptable and obtained without anxiety about
supplies; and Social acceptability, that is, the foods have been obtained
from socially acceptable sources (Johnson 1992:2).
The relevance of gender as an independent variable in the food
security matrix is underscored by the proximate impact of socio-economic
and demographic variables like household structure and headship,
employment, real wage rates, price ratios, role segregation in food
production and provision, etc. Whether in the sphere of production or
procurement and irrespective of points of overlap, measurable differences
in the activities of men and women to ensure household food security have
been observed. Argued on the basis of its essentials, therefore, women’s
role in food security takes two broad specific dimensions, viz. food
production and food procurement. While food availability is directly
correlated with food production, the ability to acquire food falls within the
purview of food procurement.
Food production is not restricted to only food crop production. It
involves motley of activities scholars have tried to appraise. Some
classifications suffice. Within the context of food production, Olayide and
Bello-Osagie (1980) classify four different activities which women are
involved in: cultivation, harvesting, distribution and alimentation. The first
activity embodies planting or seeding, input supplies (such as fertilizing,
watering, feeding of livestock) and culturing whereas the second activity
comprises harvesting, threshing, clearing, transporting and storing. The
third set of activities encompasses transporting to the farm gate, markets,
equalizing/sorting/grading and merchandising. The final activity takes in
processing for time utility, packaging and preparing into various forms of
food items or ready-to-consume dishes.
These activities can also be classified on the basis of on-farm and off-
farm task. The former includes bush clearing/land preparation, planting,
weeding, fertilizer application, harvesting, threshing, milking of cow and
tending of sheep and goats. The off-farm tasks embrace storage,
processing and marketing of food (Farinde, Jibowo and Odejide: 1995).
Another dimension of women’s food production activity is home
gardening. These gardens have the potential of satisfying the subsistence
needs of poor farmers and, because of their diversity, provide a
subsistence supply of fruits and vegetables, starchy staples, medicinal
plants and even animal protein (Food and Agriculture Organisation, 1992).
Home gardening is one survival system for household food security found
to be managed primarily by women, especially in Eastern Nigeria, Uganda
and parts of Ghana (Hahn: 1986).
The importance of women in food production differs by region.
According to United Nations (UN) estimates women’s share in family food
production is 80 percent in Africa, 60 percent in Asia and the pacific and 40
percent in Latin America (Snyder 1990). Several studies, such as
Muntemba (1982), Ezumah (1990) and Awe and Ezumah (1991), clearly
reveal that, following male shifts away from food production into cash crop
production over the decades, women carry the burden of food production.
Male shift from food to cash crop production has called attention to
the proportion of women engaged in the former. The figures vary between
regions and years. Sadik (1989, cited in Sadik: 1991) advanced that
women were responsible for fifty percent of the food produced in
developing countries. Saito (1994) discovered that an estimated seventy-
five percent of the sub-Saharan region’s food was produced by women
whereas Ogunwale and Hassan (1993) had reported that 80 percent of
food production is done by the women in some parts of Nigeria like Akwa
Ibom, Benue, Cross River and Rivers States. United Nations Economic
Commission for Afirca (UNECA) (1996) reports 70 – 80 percent of Africa’s
food production as being accounted for by women.
Generally, women play greater determinate role in food farming, and
an even more dominant one in off-farm segments of the food systems.
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) even contends that “in many
parts of the developing world, women carry a very heavy burden of farm
work, and, especially in Africa, they are the principal food producers” (Food
and Agriculture Organisation, 1987).
The prevalence of farming systems which accommodate gender role-
segregation in farm task gives impetus to women’s involvement in food
production. There are “female crops” distinguishable from “male crops”.
Examples of these include vegetables, cassava, and other tubers and roots
while examples of “male crops” include yam, rice and maize in some cases,
etc. (Buvinic and Mehra: 1990; Ezumah and Domenico: 1995).
Within the context of alimentation activity as identified earlier, women
play fundamental roles in the food security of individual family members by
providing adequate energy and nutrient intake, normal meal patterns and
some choice. That is, they have the major role of preparing balanced meals
for all members of the family, in maximizing the nutritional value and safety
of the food used, and in making the food acceptable in terms of quality and
quantity (Johnson: 1992). This confirms an earlier finding that, as they
cook, women choose or buy from among the foods available, reduce waste
in preparation, and allocate portions, to individual family members (Clark:
1985).
Where food is not produced it has to be purchased. And women also
facilitate this procurement. As cross-cultural studies reveal these women
preponderate the street food business. Surveys by Tinker and Cohen
(1985, cited in Winarno and Allain 1991) found that women involved in 90
percent of the street food enterprises in the Philistines, 53 percent in
Senegal and 40 percent in Indonesia. A study by Food and Agriculture
Organisation (1992) discovered similar trend in Ibadan, Nigeria with the
data that 90 percent of the street food sellers are women.
As food system “develops” and food becomes a commodity rather
than a satisfier of subsistence needs, women are turned increasingly from
producers to consumers who must go to the market place to purchase what
they can no longer produce at home (Gussow, Muchena and Eide: 1984).
This predisposes women to two possibilities: either they sell some of the
food they produce in order to meet family food needs or they become
income-earning from other sources of production other than farming in
order to acquire the economic resource needed to produce food.
The two possibilities have pushed women into cash crop production
and other non-agricultural income-generating activities as a means of
raising cash for purchase of food. For instance, apart from owning more
than half of the staple food and vegetable farm, women in Ghana own one-
third to one–fourth of the cash crop farms (Clark 1985). United Nations
Economic Commission for Africa (1996) recorded that women provide 73
percent of the labour force in tea estates in Rwanda while in Cameroon
about 90 percent of labour force in tea estates and 50 percent in rubber
estates have been predominantly women. Though women earn relatively
lesser income than men, even in circumstances where they work more,
their additional income serves as proximate determinant of food security.
Dey (1984) argues that husband and wife in Africa often have
separate incomes and expenses. As such daily food supplies, especially
the nutritionally important vegetables and beans, fall into the wife's
department in many cases. Another research extends this further by the
discovery that additions to women’s income go directly into improving
family nutrition, while men more often use additional income for consumer
goods or prestige purpose (Clark 1985). The likely conclusion that the size
of a mother’s income has a direct bearing on the nutritional health of her
children is informed by the fact that in countries as dispersed as Jamaica,
Botswana, Guatemala, Sri Lanka and Ghana, studies show women
spending their incomes on nutrition and everyday subsistence.
Nevertheless, it need not be overlooked that the separate access of women
to productive activity is often the only way that women obtain cash income
over which they have some control (Ellis: 1992).
It is arguable to what extent women’s engagement in food production
meets family requirements for food security. First, several studies point to
the prevalence of constraints facing women in this sphere of activity. The
general argument is that there are widespread gender-oblivious policies to
which women remain invisible with regards to pricing, marketing, credit
input, mechanization, land reform and even research (Ellis: 1992; Ezumah
and Ezumah; 1996; United Nations Economic Commission for Africa,
1996). Second, there are constraints that border on women’s reproductive
and domestic responsibilities, which compete with time expendable on food
production.
The intricacy of resource ownership and control seems to account for
women’s drift with the men into cash crop production. This drift depresses
food production and security inspite of the women’s increasing allotment of
labour time and effort to cash crop production. This is because women
work more and get less pay (United Nations Economic Commission for
Africa, 1996). However, we need to recognize the role children play in
assisting the women in the food system. Several studies show that
children’s contribution to farm production is as high as 57% of total labour
(Ngure: 1985)
Given that in many farming systems, men and women have different
but complementary spheres of obligation in food production, the specific
role of women is beclouded in some contexts. For instance, in Asia, the
household garden is small but it is never entirely women’s sphere because
its produce is normally destined for the market (Palmer 1985). The
probable reason is that in Asia, joint cultivation by spouses is more typical,
farm management decisions usually taken by men (Snyder 1990).
The problem surrounding resource ownership and control embraces
income control and distribution as a valid means of food entitlements.
Alderman (1986) for instance, posits that increases in income are
associated with increases in caloric intake of staple foods, especially for the
poorer households, but to a lesser extent for those in higher income
groups. While Gans (1999) analysis confirms this, that is, nutrient intake of
the 20% poorest households studies reacts considerably stronger to
income changes than that of the 20% richest households. He, however,
discovered that even the poorest section of the population has an inelastic
nutrient intake reaction to changes of income (that is, if income increases
nutrient intake increase at a slower rate than income). A good example
suffices in Wisner (1988) where he records rising cash incomes,
malnutrition and the exploitation of women as being synonymous in
Eastern Kenya as a result of the rice irrigation scheme of the area.
The fact that even in poorer households, increasing income may not
be synonymous with rising living standards for the household may be
influenced by the fact that when men grow food crops, they often do so in
order to sell them rather than for family use, thereby directing the income to
prestige purpose (cf Clark 1985, Snyder 1990). Moreover, there are
competing demands for fuel, water, healthcare, education and clothing.
And, in cases where the care of children, their clothing and education,
especially in female-headed households, is the responsibility of women
from their own sources of funds, family food entitlements, and invariably
nutrient intake, is depressed. Hence, it becomes difficult for some women
to sometimes ensure viable food procurement consistent with basic human
needs, even with increased income.
There are some critical points highlighted in the forgoing especially as
regards the adequacy and stability of the food supply and access. First,
gender-oblivious policies and lack of resource control have the capacity of
militating against women’s production of nutritionally adequate, culturally
acceptable and safe and good quality food to meet household food needs.
This could adversely affect environmental sustainability and hinder both the
adequacy and stability of the food supply. Secondly lack, or inadequacy, of
income, demands for other necessities and absence of support may
militate against socially sustainable and viable procurement means of
accessing food by women. These critical points become clearer when we
assess women’s involvement in the production of specific crops (e.g.
vegetables) and the utility of these in meeting household food security,
while giving consideration to relevant variables (urbanization, availability of
land, labour, credit, etc) that may intervene in the production of the food
crop on the one hand and its actual utility in meeting family food needs on
the other.
2.2 VEGETABLE FARMING
Squire (1982) has classified vegetables into different groups
depending on the parts normally eaten. These are:
i. Leaves (e.g. Brussels sprouts, cabbages, Chinese cabbage, endive,
kale lettuce, parsley, spinach, watercress, hot leaf, scent leaf).
ii. Tubers (e.g. Jerusalem artichokes, potatoes, sweet potatoes. yams).
iii. Seeds (e.g. broad beans, butter beans, haricot beans, peas, Soya
beans, and sweet corn).
iv. Seeds and pods (e.g. asparagus peas, French beans, runner beans.)
v. Stems (e.g. angelica asparagus, celery, fennel, kohlrabi, leek,
rhubarb, seakale).
vi. Fruits (e.g. aubergines, chilies, courgettes, cucumbers, gherkins,
marrows, pumpkins, squashes, and tomatoes).
vii. Roots (e.g. beetroots, carrots, celeriac, radishes, salsify, scorzonera,
swedes, parsnips, turnips).
viii. Flowers (e.g broccoli. cauliflowers, globe artichokes).
ix. Bulbs (e.g. garlic, onions, shallots).
x. Fungi (e.g. edible mushrooms, tuffles).
Vegetables have varied and essential food value. They provide
vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates, minerals, oils and fats in varying
amounts depending on their state of consumption, fresh, cooked or raw
(Squire: 1982; Burdin: 1979 Messiaen 1992). In two villages in Guinea in
the sahel region of Africa, women found they had healthier children after
they started feeding their children locally available vegetables rich in
vitamin A (Food and Agriculture Organisation, 1992). The Food and
Agriculture Organisation recommendation is that not less than 5 percent of
local calorie-intake should come from non-starchy vegetables (Martin:
1979).
Different varieties of vegetables are found in different parts of the
world and some are borrowed or grown overseas. Throughout Africa the
local leafy vegetables are available, many of them obtained from wild
plants – eg. Baobabs, amaranthus, solanum spp., etc or from other crops
like cocoyam and cassava. The production of okra, onions, cabbage, local
tomatoes, beans, peas, garlic and capsicums is also widespread and
intended for the African consumer market (Food and Agriculture
Organisation, 1969).
In Nigeria, vegetables constitute an essential ingredient of the
national diet and food culture, eaten everyday, usually with every meal. The
varieties grown, particularly in the coast and forest belt include the leafy
green varieties like the amaranthus, grown throughout Nigeria though more
popular in certain states like Oyo. Other such vegetables include the
Cochorus, Celosia, Bitter leaf, Sorrell and Roselle. The Telefeira is
preferred in Cross River (Martin: 1979).
Several studies have revealed women’s dominance of vegetable
farming, especially in Africa. In Zambia, sorghum is a “woman’s” crop and
so are green vegetables, finger, millet, cassava, beans and groundnuts
(Carr: 1991). In an earlier study of Zambia, Muntemba (1982) had
discovered that in the agricultural region, many women turned to vegetable
farming because they saw in vegetable a crop they could control and
thereby ensure household relishes. Awe and Ezumah(1991), reviewing
studies done among the Igbo of Eastern Nigeria, discovered that women, in
contrast to men, have responsibility for planting cassava, maize, sweet
potatoes, cocoyams, legumes and vegetables.
Another study of some Igbo communities in Eastern Nigeria by
Ezumah and Domenico (1995) found that vegetables, grain legumes,
cassava, peppers, groundnuts, tomatoes, and maize remain “female” crops
even though they were found on men’s farms. The presence of these crops
in men’s farms, they discovered, was largely influenced by the participation
of spouses and children in planting and harvesting in married men’s farms
and the engagement of female relations and female hired labour in
unmarried men’s farms.
Johnston (1992), presenting a Cross River State perspective to food
security derived from field experience, shows that women plant and gather
food crops. In the first instance, they plant crops such as cassava, yam,
maize, groundnuts, beans and various vegetables. In the second instance,
they gather from the bush a variety of vegetables including hot leaf,
wrapping leaf, sweet and hot pepper and mushrooms. Waterleaf, pumpkin,
spinach, scent leaf, etc fall into the first category and are widely grown in
Calabar. Wisner (1988) reports that in Nuea in Kenya, women have to
journey long distances to farm small plots of non-irrigated land for the
production of maize, beans and vegetables. And Snyder (1990) reports that
in Bangladesh, apart from assuming responsibility for post-harvesting work
and tending the livestock, women also cultivate fruits and vegetables.
Considering the fact that women dominate food production in Africa,
the centrality of women in vegetable farming in Africa is underscored by
several facts. First, vegetables, particularly the leafy vegetables form an
integral part of the national diets of African countries.
Secondly, though considered as secondary food crops and self-
provisioning foods because they are not directly related to the issue of food
imports (Palmer; 1985), vegetables provide cash income for women and
prevent common deficiency diseases (Clark: 1985). Thirdly, women in
Africa primarily manage the compound or home garden (Hahn, 1986) and
vegetables, apart from being gathered from the wild, are inter-cropped and
also grown on these gardens (Clark: 1985). In Nigeria, this is an official
policy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources:
…women will be encouraged in food production programmes through the maximum utilization of backyard lands and as a matter of policy, intensify the home garden projects among them (Federal Government of Nigeria 1989: 79) .
Where women traditionally supply vegetables for family meals, they
may be free to sell the excess for personal income. Conversely, when
women can no longer supply these, for lack of allocated land or other
reasons, their husbands may be unwilling to buy these on the market. The
burden women bear in providing these may increase because the daily
supply of these crops falls into their department (Dey 1984).
2.3 URBAN FARMING
In the metropolis food availability is determined primarily by cash
income (Food and Agriculture Organisation, 1987). However, evidence
abounds on the prevalence of agriculture as a source of food in urban
areas, especially among the urban poor. Urban Agriculture Network
estimated that by the early 1990s approximately 800 million people globally
were actively engaged in urban agriculture, of whom 200 million were
farmers (many part-time) producing for sale on the market (Scherr, 1999).
According to Foeken and Mwangi (1998), three types of urban farming are
distinguished. The first one concerns farming activities in one’s own
backyards or compound space. The second one involves farming in open
spaces of land not belonging to those who use it. The third is farming in
former rural areas that became part of the city due to the expansion of the
city boundaries.
Scherr (1999) reports that evidence from eight African and three
Asian countries showed 33-80 percent of urban familius engaged in food,
horticultural, or livestock production. Also, low-income urban residents
typically engage in agriculture to increase their food security, income levels,
and sometimes the nutritional quality of the food whereas middle- and high-
income urban farmers grow food mainly to improve diet quality or
supplement incomes with high value crops. Further discovery shows that,
whether through borrowing, rentyng or squatting, farmers utilize large areas
of cities for agriculture: Zaria, Nigeria (66% of the city); Beijing (28%), Hong
Kong (10%), Bangkok (60% of the metropolitan area) and San Jose, Costa
Rica (60%).
The areas of cities available for agriculture are varied and multiple.
For instance, horticulture takes place in homesites, parks, rights-of-way,
rooftops, containers, wetlands, and green-houses; livestock in zero-grazing
systems, rights-of-way, hillsides, peri-urban areas and open spaces;
aquaculture in ponds, streams, cages, estuaries, sewage tanks, lagoons
and wetlands; and food crops are grown in homesites, vacant building
plots, rights-of-way for electric lines, schoolyards, churchyards, and the
unbuilt land around factories, ports, airports, and hospitals (Cheema et al
1996).
In Nigeria, urban agriculture is promoted by government as part of the
programme to ensure macro-economic self-reliance and enable develop
full potential of private initiatives for sustainable and equitable socio-
economic development and food security. One approach proposed to
facilitate this is the Urban Agriculture Strategy whereby idle resources of
urban centres are mobilised in the direction of food production and also the
active urban resources are recycled for use in urban food production
system (Nnamdi, 2001).
At the international level, the World Food Summit’s objective of
ensuring that “local food supplies are safe, culturally acceptable and
adequate to meet the energy and nutrient needs of the population” expects
all governments and local authorities to:
expand the population and use of traditional and under-utilized food crops, including oilseeds, pulses and fruits and vegetables and promote home and school gardens and urban agriculture, using appropriate, sustainable technologies (Food and Agriculture Organistion: 1996).
Nevertheless, the centrality of the women in urban farming is hardly
disputable. In Tanzania, for example, in order to produce most of the milk
now sold in the capital city, women graze cattle in their backyards, also
produce chickens, eggs and vegetables wherever there is space (Snyder:
1990). In Sierra Leone, female household members cannot plant their
usual inter-crops in the swamps due to swamp soils being too wet for these
crops. As a consequence swampland is now being used for vegetable
cultivation while some have intensified cultivation of backyard gardens to
sustain vegetables’ crucial role in their cash incomes and subsistence
(Wiltshire, 1992:17).
As Guyer(1985) has argued, the exact degree to which African urban
areas depend for their provisioning on women’s work in farming,
processing and trading may be a matter of dispute, but there is no doubt
about its significance. This is the case in Calabar where the women utilize
existing idle spaces (e.g. in barracks, schoolyards, offices, and
undeveloped plots and rights-of way of electric lines on highways) for
farming purposes for auto-consumption or enhancement of family income.
The household plot or home garden which is much favoured by planners as
a proper sphere of women also offers opportunity for farming activities:
rearing of small stocks for the supply of animal protein, cultivation of
vegetables, roots and tubers to supply household relishes.
According to Squire (1982) producing vegetables in market gardens
close to sources of need or consumption is common. For instance, Food
and Agriculture Organisation (1969) reports widespread production of
European type vegetables by market gardeners in neighborhood of African
cities to supply the non-Africans and high-income consumer groups. The
high perishability of the vegetable also suggests that vegetable farming by
the women in metropolitan areas is a veritable means of servicing both the
low and high-income consumer groups.
Given that food shortages are also concerned with agricultural
exports and some roots, tubers and other crops (like the local leafy
vegetables) produced by women might not be exportable, they remain
important components of national diets in many countries. Their production
is also sustained by the resilience and “root retention” of African
populations for their traditional foods (Weekes- Vagliani 1985). This
symbolic relevance of the traditional foods may possibly account for
widespread cultivation of vegetables as sustainable and security crop in the
urban areas.
The increased involvement of women in urban farming might have
been made possible by increasing unemployment rate in the urban areas
(Awoseyila, 1999), women’s predominance of the informal sector (United
Nations, 1991) and the flexible work time of the sector (Snyder 1990).
Available data are only suggestive. Need exists for their involvement in
urban food production if their potential for ensuring food security is to be
empirically established.
2.4 CONSTRAINTS FACED BY WOMEN FARMERS
Women vegetable farmers are constrained in several ways from
meeting household food security, both within the contexts of food
production and food procurement. According to available evidence, these
constraints border on land, credit, labour, improved technologies, among
others (Muntemba 1982; Awe and Ezumah 1991; Saito 1994; Baba and
Yusuf 1995; Ezumah and Domenico 1995; Ezumah and Ezumah 1996;
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, 1996). These constraints
impact on women in two dimensions: in their status-activity as female food
producers and in their occupational activity as vegetable farmers.
Access to Land: In Africa, land has become a critical issue in food
production especially because evidence exists of cases of poor quality
land, of land shortages and of outright landless-ness. Registration and
privatization of land has particularly affected women peasants, and
consequently food production, quite adversely (Muntemba: 1982). In
Nigeria, land privatization has reached a very broad stage as evidenced by
the common land disputes since the 1960s. This struggle over land is
partly explained by the intensification of cocoa growing (Clarke: 1980)
In a study of selected African countries including Kenya, Nigeria,
Zambia, Burkina Faso, etc, contrasting patterns of land acquisition were
discovered. In Nigeria, there was little gender difference in the means of
land acquisition; inheritance of land dominated both genders and purchase
was comparatively rare for both genders. This contrasts with Kenya where
inheritance and purchase are dominant means of acquisition. However,
women’s plots compared to men’s tend to be more widely dispersed, small
in size and poorer in soil quality (Saito: 1994.
Another study, of Eastern Nigeria, argued that women have
usufructory rights to land through their husbands, fathers, brothers and
sons due to the patriarchal structure of the societies, and are precluded
from inheriting land as a means of ensuring that family land is not
dispersed to their husband’s lineage (Ezumah and Domenico: 1995).
Alternative sources of access to land are purchase, leasing of land with
cash payments or by sharecropping.
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (1996) argument is
that land allocation in Africa generally re-emphasizes the male superiority
position. Land settlement schemes, in most countries, for instance, have
generally been effected in the name of the male heads of household to the
total neglect of women members of the families (cf. Ellis 1992). The
consequence is that women have control over small size of cropland for
farming purposes.
The quality of land is also a major limiting factor in food production.
In a literature review by Dregne (1990 cited in Scherr: 1999) compelling
proofs of serious land degradation in sub-regions of thirteen countries (viz.:
Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya Lesotho, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria,
Swaziland, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda and Zimbabwe) were recorded.
The decreasing quality of available agricultural land, caused primarily by
water and wind erosion, chemical degradation, over-grazing, agricultural
activities, deforestation, and over exploitation, has resulted in decrease in
crop yield in Africa (Scherr: 1999).
Since environmentally beneficent management of land is closely
related to security of tenure, women’s incentives and capacity to manage
the land in an ecologically sound way is impaired because the introduction
of agro-forestry or alley farming in Nigeria has proven very difficult due in
part to the hesitancy of women to plant trees - an action which implies land
ownership (Cashman 1990, cited in Saito: 1994.
Access to labour: Access to labour is also a constraint women face in
food production. The extraction of male labour from local into capitalist
production (Muntemba: 1982), male predominance in rural-urban migration
for wage employment resulting in the intensification of women’s work in
agriculture and in labour shortages in food production, particularly in
female-head households (Rogers 1980, cited in Ezumah and Ezumah:
1996) account in part for this constraint.
In their review of some studies on access to labour as a constraint in
women’s farming activities, Ezumah and Ezumah (1996) record the
following: women’s lack of access to credit constrain them from being able
to purchase paid labour (Roberts 1998); women’s cultural obligation to
provide labour on their husband’s farm limits the amount of time they can
devote to their own farms (Babalola and Dennis 1988).
Ezumah and Domenico (1995) found limited access to labour as
constraint in Eastern Nigeria. Following the production of food crop for
domestic and commercial uses, the farmers and their household members
are no longer able to provide sufficient labour for land preparation and
other cropping activities. This increases the demand for the use of hired
labour and where cash payment has to be made for hired labour, women
are more hit. The impact is more on widows or women in female-headed
household or ones with absentee husbands, especially where they lack
alternative sources of income such as secondary occupations.
Access to credit: Formal agricultural credit has been noted to be less
accessible to women than men farmers (D’Silva and Raza 1983, Okuneye
1984, Adekanye 1984, all cited in Awe and Ezumah 1991). Ownership of
collateral such as land, membership of cooperative and farmers’
association ( Loutfi 1980; Cloud 1985, cited in Ezumah and Ezumah 1996)
often determine access to credit. Supporting these findings, United Nations
Economic Commission for Africa (1996) argues that since male heads of
households generally hold titles to land or other property and are required
to sign loans, women’s independent access to credit is hardly possible.
Among the reasons that facilitate lack of access to credit as operative
constraint in women’s food production activities are: women’s
predominance of small-scale farming, often unregistered as a business,
distance from rural areas to town and cities where credit facilities are
available, lack of hereditary rights and other means of obtaining land as a
collateral. Others include attitudes and beliefs which underestimate
women’s potential agricultural productivity and their ability to repay loans
and the habit of some credit officers and their institutions to assume that
the activities for which loans have been given must themselves yield
adequate financial returns to sustain repayment (United Nations Economic
Commission for African, 1996).
Inaccessibility to credit facilities precludes women from accessing
relevant and timesaving inputs. However, due to the persistent lack of
access to formal credit facilities, women have improvised informal credit
schemes as innovative response to their needs. For instance, on a much
smaller scale than bank, women save together through rotating savings
and credit associations. These self-help or cooperative groups are reported
in several countries: isusu in Nigeria (Ezumah and Domenico 1995),
tontines in Burkina Faso (Saito 1994), pasanaku in Bolivia, susu in Ghana,
pia huey in Thailand and bui in China (Snyder 1990).
Access to improved technologies: The dissemination of information
about innovations in agriculture as well as access to training, fertilizers and
other inputs, and extension services have been directed mainly to male
farmers with adverse effects on women’s productivity (Ezumah and
Ezumah 1996). The marginalization of women in terms of access to
production inputs such as fertilizers, improved seed varieties, storage
techniques, etc has often resulted in the deterioration of women’s
productive capacity (Muntemba 1982).
Extension service remains one practical means of providing farmers
access to improved technologies. This remains part of the objectives that
underlie the Women-in-Agriculture (WIA) programme of Agricultural
Development Projects (ADPs) in Nigeria. Nevertheless, the programme has
been constrained by inadequacy of experienced and skilled personnel
(Akpoko and Arokoyo 1995), lack of good access road to farmers, lack of
enough vehicles for operation, insufficiency of teaching materials and non-
challant attitude of women farmers (Farinde et al. 1995).
Extension service as a means to improved technologies operates as
a constraint for the women due to the fact that male agents “do not
consider the time element involved in child rearing, food preparation, fuel
gathering and household chores” in scheduling meetings convenient for
female farmers. Another reason is the fact that extension contacts days in
Eastern Nigeria occasionally conflict with local markets operating on a 5-
day cycle, and few women can afford to forego the income of a market day
in order to meet the extension agent. In this era of significant growth in
biotechnology, expanded extension facilities backed by intensified
agricultural research have been found to be gender-biased. Food crops
that are pre-dominantly cultivated by women are hardly part of research
(Wisner 1988).
Apart from access to land, labour, credit and improved technologies,
vegetable farmers face several other constraints in their bid to meet
household food security. Food can either be procured from subsistence
production or from purchasing on the market. Where the former is non-
existent or not adequate and stable, the latter option is inevitable. Given
that income-control has proximate impact on household food security (von
Braun et al 1992), and incomes controlled by women are more likely to be
directed towards enhancing food security than men’s (Clark 1985; Snyder
19980), women’s lack of control over income is a barrier to family food
security, both as a resource for purchasing farm inputs as well as for the
purchase of food.
Women’s practical needs and the constraints they face are often
related to their overall low-income status which comes about through a
combination of factors. These factors include their lower levels of literacy
and formal education, and skill training, which in turn has an impact on their
position in the labour force (Ghana-Cida Grains Development Project,
1993).
Women generally have elaborate and demanding reproductive and
household responsibilities: It is they who have always taken care of
children, prepare the family meals and fetch water and fuel wood from long
distance most often on foot. With high fertility prevalence of sub-Saharan
Africa, women are increasingly drawn to spend more time on rearing
children and more energy in providing food and services for household
consumption thereby restricting their access to paid employment as a
means of raising family income (United Nations Economic Commission for
Africa, 1996; cf Federal Government of Nigeria, 1989).
When we consider the energy cost of pregnancy, lactation, carrying
fuel wood and water, walking to distant field, and cooking, childcare and
resting energy, women have less energy available for food production.
Hence, in an event food produced (in kcal) and sold on market for cash
value is less than food purchased for cash value (in kcal) there is net loss
of energy. That is, ignoring other nutritional assets. It is this unseen
landscape of class-stratified scarcity and abundance, arising primarily from
the interaction of socio-economic factors with demography and ecology that
Wisner (1988) terms a “fuelscape”.
The foregoing constraints which affect the African farmer basically in
her status-activity as female farmer also impacts on her specific activity as
a vegetable farmer. Land, labour, credit and knowledge of improved
technologies would help the vegetable farmers become more productive.
In Africa, where farmers rely on bringing new land into cultivation to
expand production (Pinstrup-Andersen, 1994), lack of access to land has
implication for vegetable farmers particularly in urban areas where
increasing industrialization and urbanization is causing substantial loss of
cropland. The seeming remedy is that increase in food production must
come primarily from higher yields per unit of land, than from land
expansion. However, where women have to rent land, as is becoming
increasingly common in Nigeria (Saito (1994), the stable supply of
vegetables will be hampered, especially as there may be no resource for
renting the land.
Since women provide the primary labour in vegetable production,
time allocation to cultivation, harvesting, transportation, marketing and
other family responsibilities become operative constraints. Where
vegetable farmers have to employ hired labour, their net gain, if at all
existent, is likely to be too infinitesimal, particularly as they are small -
holders. Given that women work more hours than men, both on farming
and in total (women 9.0 hours in agriculture and 5.0 in non-agriculture, men
7.0 in agriculture and 1.5 in non-agriculture), farm output or household
management can hardly yield satisfactory results (Saito (1994).
Even when it is becoming widely recognized that women can make
good use of credit in their own right for activities that improve their own
livelihoods and the income security of their families (Berger 1989), credit is
hardly available for vegetable farmer. Yet, these women as small-scale
commercial farmers, with farm of 1-10 hectares, need some purchased
inputs and do market some of the produce.
At the consultative meeting of stakeholders in the agricultural sector
in Cross River State on “Evolving Sustainable Strategies for Financing
Agricultural Enterprises” held in February, 2001, the Central Bank of
Nigeria disclosed intention to provide facilities for vegetable farmers in
Calabar Metropolis from its Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme (ACGS).
However, the Bank still requires that these vegetable farmers must belong
to the Council of Nigerian Farmers and contribute about 25% of expected
facility to the “Farmers Trust Fund” even to obtain a facility of N10,000 (cf.
Ekak 2001, CBN 2001).
Lack of relevant knowledge and inputs that can increase yields per
unit of land, either occasioned by exclusion of vegetable farmers from
extension services or their lack of purchasing power, constitute a constraint
in vegetable production. This constraint is heightened considering the fact
that most vegetables, particularly the leafy varieties, are highly perishable
and vulnerable to post-harvest losses (cf Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) 1969, Martin 1979, Aslam and Khan 1983). Reducing
this loss during transportation, storage, and purchasing has been argued
as the most immediate source of augmenting food stocks (Gorbachev:
1986).
The relevance of the foregoing for the present study is that it is
possible to assess what possible hindrances vegetable farmers’ experience
and how they respond to them. Beyond this, the present study considers
what potential impact the farmers ability to surmount these constraints has
on family food security.
2.5 FARMING SYSTEMS IN SUB-SAHARA AFRICA
Agriculture has long been the dominant sector in much of sub-Sahara
Africa in terms of output, employment and export earnings (Hamilton, 1994:
vii). In Nigeria, it employs over two-third of the labour force, mostly in small-
scale farming (Saito 1994:10). However, given the shift from agriculture to
dependence on petroleum products for foreign earnings, we could argue, a
lá Ghatak and Ingersent(1984:5), that agriculture in Nigeria, as in most
sub-Saharan countries, is the dominant employer (including those who are
self-employed) though not necessarily the largest sector in terms of
contributions to Gross National Product (GNP).
The agricultural productivity of any community or nation is very much
determined by the operational farming systems. Farming system is here
understood as a "pattern of growing crops and keeping livestock in order to
produce food, fiber and at the same time maintain soil fertility” (Agboola
1967:44, quoted in Charles 1993:46). Interest in farming systems has
emerged out of the need to enhance their efficiency by directing agricultural
research towards generating and testing improved technologies. This
interest, as noted by Amir and Akhtar (1993:207), has been directed to
looking at the farm more holistically as a system with due consideration
given to the relationships between the various components under the
control of the farm household and of the interactions of these components
with physical, biological and socio-economic factors under the households”
control. Thus, farming systems possess holistic, integrated, location
specific and dynamic characteristics.
In line with the above characteristics scholars have identified different
types of farming systems. Charles (1993:46-51) documents some of these:
shifting cultivation, sedentary or permanent cultivation, nomadic fallow
cultivation, livestock ranching, tree or plantation system, terrace agriculture
and intensive irrigated agriculture, etc. As the study shows, such typology
making is conditioned by a scholar’s choice of indices as in the use of
components (all crops, all livestock, or mixed), lifestyle (nomadic, settled,
semi-settled), inputs (labour intensive or capital intensive), output
(subsistence, surplus or cash cropping), etc. It is in this manner that
Boserup (1970), using gender as her index, distinguished three types of
farming systems- female, male and mixed (cf Buvinic and Mehra, 1990:1).
In female farming systems, the dominant features are slash and burn
agriculture, communal land ownership and use of the hoe with women
being economically independent and mobile. Male farming systems on the
other hand are based on land ownership, settled production patterns and
the use of draft animals and the plow. Within these farming systems
women are often secluded and dependent on men for economic support.
The mixed farming system emerge with rapidly growing populations and
are characterized by year-round intensive cultivation and multiple cropping
facilitated with irrigation to check-mate the increasing land pressure.
Shifting cultivation is a farming system in which a piece of land is
cultivated for several years and subsequently left to fallow. Traditionally,
this system involved both shifts in settlements and cultivated areas.
However, due to pressures of increasing population, the traditional, simple
phase has given way to variants of the system in the forms of land rotation,
bush fallowing, rotational bush fallowing or recurrent cultivation (Komolafe
et al, 1979:11). The basic difference between these variants and the simple
shifting cultivation is that in the variant systems, the dwelling is relatively
permanent whereas in the latter dwellings and cultivated area shift
together. Naturally, shifting cultivation is sustainable at low population
pressures.
Other systems identified by Komolafe et al (1979:11-13) include
multiple cropping, mono-cropping, crop rotation and mixed farming. While
multiple cropping is regarded as the cultivation of many crops on a
particular plot of land within a given planting season, mono-cropping is the
cultivation of one single crop, usually over a large area. Crop rotation on
the other hand is a system of soil management by rotating crops grown on
one piece of land in successive seasons such that a piece of cultivated
land is maximally used. Mixed farming is a system involving both the
cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock.
Wrigley (1981:96,cited in Charles, 1993) has estimated the tropical
land areas covered by some of the known farming systems as follows:
shifting cultivation (45%), settled subsistence farming (17%), nomadic
(45%) livestock ranching (11%) and plantation system (4%). The
prevalence of a csystem in an area with their naturally occurring beneficial
interactions is determined by a combination of factors such as
i. Density of agricultural Population;
ii. Natural resources, that is the physical environment;
iii. Farm location in relation to markets and transport infrastructures;
iv. Traditional, cultural and social patterns related to land use; and
v. Availability of technical knowledge and capital resources (Komolafe et
al 1979).
These factors have been recast differently by Joy and Wilberly (1979, cited
in Charles, 1993) as follows:
i. Environmental: Climate, soil, seasonality, pest and diseases;
ii. Economic: demand, prices and availability of markets:
iii. Technical: supply of improved seeds, fertilizer and new tools.
iv. Human factors: tradition of the people, farmer preferences and the
calibre of people available to work the land.
Given the foregoing, therefore, sustainable farming systems
deliberately integrate and take advantage of naturally occurring beneficial
interactions by emphasizing management over technology, and biological
relationships and natural processes over chemically intensive methods
(Thompson and Hinchliffe, 1998). Put differently, the value of every farming
system lies in its utility in meeting higher yield, sustaining soil fertility and
easier management of available land. Permaculture (permanent
agriculture) has emerged as one system in response to this. In this
system, farmers use no inputs, such as chemicals, from outside the area
where they farm. They grow a mixture of food and tree crops, and often
keep small livestock, with each part of the system benefiting the other part
(Madeley 1995). Because of its integrated value, permaculture has been
found to be suitable for both rural and urban areas particularly because of
its potential of intensively cultivating small plots. Other integrated systems
such as the integrated pig-ducks-fish-vegetable system have been found to
be practiced widely in south East Asia and China. This system involves the
integration of pig production with fish farming, duck keeping and vegetable
production, or a combination of this (Davendra and Pun: 1993).
Inland valleys or fadamas have been found in West and Central
Africa. The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) estimates
the presence of about 14million hectres of these in West Africa. These
systems are well watered and have enormous potential for producing food,
especially rice. However, Ezumah and Ezumah (1996) reveal that rotating
rice with legumes tolerant of water logging can attain increased fertility of
these systems.
Though varieties of farming systems abound and agriculture has
been the mainstay of some sub-Saharan African countries’ economy it has
been argued that, of the world’s major regions, only in sub Saharan African
are there clear signs that agricultural systems have generally been unable
to keep food production up with population growth (Dyson, 1995). Among
the diverse problems affecting agriculture in Africa have been identified the
following: fragile infrastructures, weak administrative systems, rapid
population growth, poor assistance to farmers, especially women farmers,
prevalence of low-yielding crop varieties, poor soil conditions, amount and
distribution of rainfall, incidence of pests and diseases, low investment in
research, poor research-extension-farmer linkages, poor access to land,
credit, labour and improved technologies, under-utilization of cultivable
land, etc. (Lawson, 1985; Saito, 1994; Matlon, 1987; Vallaeys et al1987;
Saito, 1994; Dyson, 1995; Ezumah and Ezumah, 1996).
Beyond the foregoing, analysis of farming systems at the micro-level
must be cognizant of structural variables. These structural variables include
the composition and headship of the farm household, viability of sources of
income, availability of labour, availability of alternative sources of income,
etc. This is more so because at the centre of the farming system is the
household, which organizes the crop and animal enterprises, further
indexing the unity of farm and household (cf.0Reimer, 1986, Garrett, 1984,
Amir and Akhtar 1993). By extension, vegetable production in urban areas
of third world countries might have emerged in response to ecological and
socio- economic imperatives. Thus, vegetable cultivation, especially of the
leafy varieties may be prevalent across varied farming systems, whether
traditional, irrigated or integrated. In studying it, therefore, the analysis will
naturally identify determinants, features, constraints and benefits of
vegetable production within specific locations or communities.
2.6 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Theory–oriented research is the hallmark of scientific sociology.
However, “a total system of sociological theory, in which observations
about every aspect of social behavior, organization, and change promptly
find their pre-ordained place” has been argued by Robert K. Merton to be
non-existent. Hence, for him what passes for sociological theory consists
of “general orientations toward data, suggesting types of variables which
theorists must somehow take into account, rather than clearly formulated,
verifiable statements of relationships between specified variables” (quoted
in Turner 1978: 69-70).
It was discoveries such as those articulated above that informed
Merton’s advocacy for “theories of the middle range”. Theories of the
middle range are couched at a lower level of abstraction and reveal clearly
defined and operationalized concepts that are incorporated into statements
of co-variance for a limited range of phenomena, therefore offering more
theoretical promise than grand theory (Turner, 1978).
The ultimate justification of a theory is whether in the process of
“doing sociology”, it helps us to understand, to catch a glimpse of the world
(Wallace and Wolf 1986:5). As this points to the relationship between
research and theory, the utility of theories of the middle range lies in their
critically re-asserting the efficacy of empirically oriented theory and
theoretically oriented research (Turner, 1978:91). Owing to the multiple
variables involved in explaining any sociological phenomenon, it is often
difficult for a single theory, even of the middle range, to exhaust a
phenomenon under study. This informed Nowak’s contention that “if we
are interested in a greater number of aspects or phenomenon than is
covered by the concepts and propositions of one theory we have to apply
as many theories as is needed for our purpose” (Nowak 1982: 18).
The above is no less applicable in this study. Food Security touches
on all the dimensions of human security: economic relations, power
structures and the environment. In its synthesis of food security issues
discussed by academics, development activists, policy analysts and Non-
Governmental Organisation (NGO) personnel during a meeting held
between April 13-15, 2001, The International Famine Centre (IFC) argues
for the holistic approach to food security. The holistic framework
incorporates economics, politics, culture and social relations (particularly
gender). Thus, the choice of the two models used in this study is for
complementary analytical purposes. They are the human rights
perspectives to food security and the FAO model of women’s food-related
activities.
2.6.1 HUMAN RIGHTS PERSPECTIVE: THE RIGHT TO FOOD
SECURITY
The human rights perspective to food security is an eclectic outcome
of a combination of several legal instruments of the United Nations with its
agencies and national legislation of some countries developed within the
broader framework of economic, social and cultural rights. It is a theoretical
construction based on general insights and experiences with development
processes in developing and developed countries. Its theoretical relevance
lies in its universal abstraction, underlying assumptions, and
systematization of the food security matrix. The perspective as presented
here borrows primarily from the text Food, Nutrition and Human Rights, a
conference paper submitted by Norway for the International Conference on
Nutrition and prepared by Oshaug, Eide and Eide (1992). This is
complemented by other literatures that synthesize and articulate food
security as a human right.
As a development model, the human rights perspective that became
applicable in explaining the issue of food security emerged primordially in
development literature from the 1941 “Four Freedom Address” by president
of the United States of America, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The four
freedoms are freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of speech
and freedom of faith. These four freedoms which strongly influenced the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948,
subsumes the right to food within the freedom from want.
It is from the freedom from want that the universal abstraction of the
framework is derived: the international human rights system can be an
instrument in helping states to secure freedom from want for their
inhabitants. It is by extension of this that the perspective addresses the
questions of securing freedom from want of food. This universal abstraction
is captured by Article 25(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Everyone has the right to standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security In the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control (emphasis added)
Article II of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights also provides that:
The state parties to the present covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuos improvement of living conditions (emphasis added).
By this, the right to be free from want of food, to be food secure, is
construed as a universal human right within the complex of economic,
social and cultural rights. “Food security is one of the most basic of all
human rights – achieving it should not be seen as ‘charity’ but as an
obligation on all people” the International Famine Centre (IFC).
Beyond the universal abstraction of the right to food, the following
specific assumptions underlie the human rights perspective of food
security.
1. Availability of enough food for all can be attained;
2. Harmful seasonal and inter-annual instability of food supplies can be
reduced;
3. Access to nutritionally adequate and safe food by all is possible
(Food and Agriculture Organisation, 1996:4).
Emerging from these assumptions, food security becomes conceptualized
as “access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy
life” (World Bank, 1986). However, in order to systematize the theoretical
model for analytical purposes, Oshaug et al (1992) adapt the conceptual
model developed by Eide at al (1985 and 1986) to propose the human
rights perspective on food security (see Figure 2.6.1.1).
FOOD SECURITY Figure 2.6.1.1 A Normative Model of Food Security. Adapted from Eide et al, 1985 and 1986
Purchased Foods
Gifts/ Donated Foods
Gathered Foods
Own Produced
Foods
Bartered Food
Government Social Security Schemes
Traditional Support Structures Mechanisms Quantity (Energy) Quality (Nutrients)
Public Informal Natural Resource Management and Conservation
Local Informal Natural Resource Management and Conservation
Contaminates Toxic Factors Residues Types of Foods/Cultural Significance
Viable Food Procurement
Social Sustainability
Environmental Sustainability
Safety
Nutritional Adequacy
Cultural Acceptability
STABILITY OF THE FOOD SUPPLY AND ACCESS
ADEQUACY OF THE FOOD SUPPLY
The major subdivisions of the analytical model are expressed in
terms of adequacy and stability in both food supply and access. These
point to the need for attention both to the food itself, and to the ways
security of supply and a range of other development factors condition
access to food. Adequacy of the food supply means that the types of food
available should be:
i. Culturally acceptable (i.e. fit the prevailing food culture).
ii. The overall supply should potentially cover nutritional needs in terms
of quantity (energy) and quality (provide all essential nutrients);
iii. Be safe (i.e. free of toxic factors and contaminants) and of good food
quality (in terms of taste, texture, etc).
Stability of the food supply and access to food presupposes the following: -
a. Environmental sustainability, that is, satisfactory formal and informal
management of natural resources which have a bearing on food
supply;
b. Social sustainability of support mechanism, either through traditional
support arrangements; or solidarity networks which act as buffer
mechanisms enabling vulnerable groups to withstand various crisis
situations and further improve their food, nutrition, and health
situation; or through the public sector in terms of governmental social
security schemes, redistribution policy measures and by
strengthening services.
c. Viable food procurement at the household level, implying that there
must be sufficient resources to cover also basic human needs other
than food, or the procurement of food may come into conflict with the
covering of these other needs when there is competition for scarce
resources on the household budget.
The theoretical model argues that due to the integrated nature of the
system of human rights, the right to food cannot be achieved by addressing
it alone as one isolated development objective. Rather it can only be
achieved as part of objectives arranged for integrated attainment which, if
and when achieved, will mutually re-enforce each other and ensure a better
outcome. That is, in pursuit of the right to food, a country must strategically
focus on achieving food security integratively with other economic, social
and cultural rights. These other rights include, inter alia, the following: -
clothing, housing, clean drinking water, employment, reduction of mortality
rate, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other
diseases, ensuring access by all to medical service, etc.
To substantiate the full realization of the rights, the proponents of the
perspective advance propositions to activate a country’s commitment at
three levels. At the primary level, they propose respect of the freedom of
the individuals to take the necessary actions and use the necessary
resources, either alone or in association with others, to facilitate the
fulfillment of their needs.
At the secondary level, it is proposed that individual freedom of action
and use of resources as against other more assertive or aggressive
subjects must be protected. The contexts in which protection may be
relevant include protection against more powerful economic interests,
against fraud, against food adulteration, against unethical behavior in trade
and contractual relations, and against the marketing and dumping of
hazardous or dangerous products. Within the sphere of protection, it is
further proposed that legislation to ensure protection must be contextually
based on the specific situational requirements in the country concerned.
At the tertiary level, it is proposed that each country must be a
provider by fulfilling the expectations of all to enjoy the right to food. This
obligation has two dimensions. First, provision of assistance in order to
provide opportunities for those who have none. Second, direct provision of
food (direct food aid) or resources that can be used to acquire food (social
security) when no other possibility exists. This latter case becomes
necessitated by instances such as recession, emergency crises or
disasters, and structural transformations in the economy and production,
which lead to marginalization of some people. This perspective was again
re-inforced by the “Zeist Declaration” in 1999 during the meeting of
representatives of 57 civil society organisations from Africa, Asia, Latin
America, North America and Europe in Zeist (Netherlands) from 18-22
April. The Declaration holds that “Food security is a basic human right….
Food Sovereignty to our countries and communities means having the
democratic right and power to determine the production, distribution and
consumption of food, according to our preferences and cultural traditions”
(Madeley, 1999:32-3).
The perspective has enormous relevance as a theoretical construct. It
is an embracing analytical framework that captures and articulates the
multiple-factor linkages that characterize the food security system. First,
the model recognizes that the adequacy and stability in both food supply
and access are conditioned by several factors, which call attention to the
pursuit of simultaneous objectives towards this end such that one aspect
reinforces the other.
Second, by emphasizing the role of national governments, the model
recognizes the primary responsibility of governments to provide
opportunities and resources for people to utilize towards achieving their
food security. Third, it also recognizes that food is first and foremost a
source of nutrition, the basis of life and only secondarily a tradable
commodity (Shiva, 1996:19)
For analytical purposes, the theoretical model is essentially sound
because of its multi-faceted nature, trans-cultural qualities and multi-
disciplinary origin and orientation. However, for the purpose of our study, its
theoretical utility is arguable. First, it is macroscopic in orientation, that is,
broad in scope and also normative, composing of several sub-goals as
preconditions for attaining food security. Though the model accommodates
culture-specific standards, it argues that such standards must meet
universal norms. Besides, their realization rests solely on the legal system
of individual nations.
Secondly, the concepts of the model are not too clearly defined for
empirical validation. For instance, according to the proponents of the
model, the term “viable procurement” encompasses own produced foods,
purchased foods, gathered foods, bartered foods and gifts/donated foods.
The degree of viability of each of these sources of food differs from each
other. While own produced foods – conditioned by availability of production
inputs – and purchased foods (conditioned by availability of food in the
local markets and income level of households) may be viable means of
food procurement, the others may not be. In Calabar for example, bartered
and gathered foods are not viable means of food procurement, whereas
gifts/donated food – while it may be existent – tend to be seasonal (e.g.
Christmas season) and class-oriented (e.g. well placed public and political
officers). Hence, the inability and inaccessibility of foods through some of
these means of procurement depress their viability as a source of
procurement.
Thirdly, the model is too universal in its approach to exhaust the
multiple facets of household food security, especially the structural
variability of the household in terms of its demographic, social-cultural and
economic situations. Essentially, measures for determining food security in
relation to household headship and gender are non-extant. As available
data reveal, food sharing within the household is always at the
disadvantage of the female gender (Food and Agriculture Organisation,
1992:7-9). Apart from these, it is important that a theoretical model on food
security focuses primarily on the division of responsibility in meeting family
food needs, activities and decisions undertaken by different household
members (male and female) to meet these needs, and also differentiate
access to and control (by gender) over resources towards meeting family
food needs. Hence, for the purpose of our study the utility of this model as
the primary framework is, at least in parts, minimal.
2.6.2 FAO MODEL OF WOMEN’S FOOD-RELATED ACTIVITIES
A theoretical model for explaining women’s food-related activities was
developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) in the text Women in Food Production, Food Handling and Nutrition
(Charlton 1984). This model, as captured by Figure 2.6.2.1 seeks to
analyze women’s food-related activities as part of a system with major
components and relationships, viz. family needs, division of responsibility
for meeting these needs, activities undertaken to fulfil responsibilities and
control over products obtained. Each of these structural components
encompasses specific elements.
i. Family needs: What are family’s needs for consumable food and food
products? What are the family’s needs for cash for consumable food
and food products? What are the family’s needs for cash for other
necessities?
ii. Division of responsibility for meeting these needs (who provides
what?): What consumable food and food products do women
provide? And what do men provide? What purchased consumable
food and food products do women provide? And what do men
provide? What competing uses for cash do women have? And what
competing uses for cash do men have?
iii. Activities undertaken to fulfil responsibilities (whose labour and
whose decisions?); within the spheres of consumable food and food
products provided by women (or by men), what are women’s labour
inputs and what are men’s labour inputs in terms of activities, time
and proportion of total? And, what are women’s decision-making
inputs within the spheres of cash for consumable food and food
products provided by women (and by men) to obtain cash for
consumable food and for food products? And what additional
decisions are made by women, and by men, regarding these
activities?
iv. Control over produce obtained (who allocates or distributes?): who
controls the disposal of consumable items and food products
provided by women (and those provided by men)? Who controls the
disposal of cash obtained from items mainly worked by women (and
those mainly worked by men)?
It is within the last set of questions that practical and strategic gender
needs are expressed. This is because it is the sphere within which
influence or decision-making power is exercised. This has been further
espoused in The Manager (2000) under its analysis of access to and
control of resources. The questions are set forth thus: Who is able to use
the resources available to a household – time, disposable income, food,
household goods, land, etc? Who can use the resources available in the
community? Who defines and takes decisions about the use of those
resources in the household and wider community?
Figure 2.6.2.1 A Model of Women’s Food-Related Activities Adapted from FAO, 1979 in Charlton 1984
ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN TO FULFILL RESPONSIBILITIES
LABOUR INPUTS
DECISION INPUTS
CONTROL OVER PRODUCTS OBTAINED
FAMILY
NEEDS
DIVISION OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR METING THESE NEEDS The foregoing form a network of interrelated variables that generate a
framework expedient in analyzing the household food needs while being
cognizant of gender differentials. The utility of this framework for analyzing
women’s role in food security with specific considerations to vegetable
farming in an urban area is, therefore, fundamental, exhaustive and
insightful.
Food security is a family’s primary need. This security entails
differential access of all household members depending on their
circumstances, whether one is a pregnant woman, breast feeding woman,
baby or infant, pre–school child, school child, man or woman, elderly or
disabled (Badcock and Homasi: 1990). Thus, the demographic composition
of a household determines the specific food needs of the family. These
food-needs exist side by side with other family needs, thereby resulting in
competition for household resources. Hence, even when a family satisfies
its food needs through subsistence production, the need for cash, atleast
for other necessities, persists.
To adequately meet whatever family needs there maybe, division of
responsibility exists within the household. Studies have indicated that the
preponderance of men and women in the production of different types of
crops suggest their responsibility for providing gender-related crops to meet
family food need. However, women seem to have the basic responsibility of
meeting food needs of the family in terms of quantity and quality of food
consumed, probably because food crop production depends heavily on
them (90%) since export and non-food crop production draw off
proportionately more of the men farmers (Food and Agriculture
Organisation, 1983). The provision of daily supplies, especially the
nutritionally important vegetables and beans, have been found to be the
women’s sole responsibility in many cases, and when they are unable to
supply these, their husbands may be unwilling to buy these items on the
market (Dey: 1984). Where other necessities, such as healthcare,
education, clothing, housing, etc need to be met, the division of
responsibility will be conditioned partially by access to and control over
income given that husband and wife often have separate income and
expenses (Clark: 1985)
Division of responsibility within the household implies that certain
activities have to be undertaken to fulfil these obligations. Each of these
activities always requires labour inputs (in terms of activities, time and
proportion of total) and decision-making inputs. For instance, in response
to their responsibility for meeting household food needs, women farmers
carry out activities such as hoeing, planting, weeding, harvesting and
processing, a chain of activities which entails their spending 9-10 hours
daily on only food producing activities (Carr, 1991:11).
Within the context of our study, the present theoretical model allows
us to explore vegetable farming as one significant activity undertaken by
women in Calabar Metropolis to fulfil their share of responsibilities for
meeting household needs, an activity which requires both labour and
decision-making inputs. In Calabar, we can identify two groups of vegetable
farmers, viz. the small-scale commercial farmers who own 1-10 hectares of
land ant those who farm mainly for subsistence need. They both contribute
differentially to household food security.
The small-scale commercial vegetable farmers spend several hours
on the farm daily planting, weeding, watering, harvesting and also
marketing the produce either at the farm location or at the designated
markets. They use purchased inputs, hire labour, rent land and also
market their produce. Being responsible for the preparation and allocation
of food to individual family members, they also reserve part of the products
for family consumption and buy from among the foods available at the local
markets.
The consumption of vegetable, particularly the local leafy varieties,
constitutes a primary aspect of the food culture and part of a wider cultural
identity of Calabar. Vegetable is often used in preparing sauce of broth,
which could be eaten with “garri” (cassava flour), yam, rice, plantain, etc.
These other foods and the relishes used in preparing vegetable broth (e.g.
meat, shrimps, fish, periwinkle, etc) have to be purchased in the market.
Thus, the small-scale commercial vegetable farmer relies on the sale of her
produce to obtain the cash needed for other items. However, the utility of
such cash for food often comes into conflict with the need to satiate other
necessities, even when the provision of these other necessities might not
have been the women’s responsibility. This demand for additional income
invariably pushes most women into engaging in the informal sector as petty
traders, nannies, hairdressers, seamstresses and other personal service
occupations.
The framework also accommodates the possibility of formal sector-
employed women engaging in vegetable production as part of their
response to the division of responsibility in meeting household needs within
existing food culture. Those producing vegetable mainly for subsistence
purpose dominate this group. They often utilise available land in the
compound and undeveloped or idle family plots and hardly use purchased
inputs, hired labour and rented land. Vegetable farming is important for this
category of women when we consider the poverty profile of Calabar where
there exists scarcity of cash for the procurement of all family needs,
thereby making any means of augmenting family stocks without the
expense of cash desirable.
Vegetable farming constitutes only a fraction of the daily labour inputs
of women towards meeting household need. Their labour is also required
in other domestic activities such as preparing and serving of the food,
washing of clothes, cleaning of the house, caring for the child, among
others.
Whether production is for commercial or subsistence purpose, the
women also contribute decision-making inputs with respect to their
responsibilities towards meeting household food needs. These decision-
making inputs border on varieties of vegetables to cultivate (whether water
leaf, fluted pumpkin, spinach, scent leaf, hot leaf, or a combination of
these); farming systems (like inter-cropping, etc.); whether to farm on long
distant plots from the household; how to allocate time for respective
activities. Other decision-making inputs include utilization of available land,
implements to use, securing of credit, hiring of labour, renting of land,
having other sources of income. For these women in formal sector
employment, their decision-making inputs also include what alternative use
they may make about the “additional” income from own-vegetable
production arising from subsequent elimination of vegetable procurement
from household budget using prevailing market prices.
Labour and decision-making inputs are conditioned by several
factors, depending on the activities undertaken. For the commercial
vegetable farmers such factors include land, credit, labour, improved
technologies, seasonal fluctuations, time-budget, markets, etc. For those
in formal sector employment, such factors include, beyond the above,
positions of authority occupied, salaries (income), educational attainment,
etc which act as incentives for consolidating their decision-making “power”
and ability to obtain paid labour.
In all, however, the most pervasive conditioning factor which has
immediate and direct impact on the fulfilment of gender responsibility for
meeting household needs border on who has control over products
obtained; that is, who distributes or allocates available resources whether
food products or cash? As studies done elsewhere show, the food cultures
of most societies, especially of Africa, place the responsibility of food
allocation within the family on the women (Food and Agriculture
Organisation, 1987, Clark: 1985). This responsibility implies that the
women must necessarily generate/cultivate adequate quantity of own-
produced food for family consumption and seek alternative means of
generating income to purchase other food requirements because the
responsibility of distribution tends to carry with it the burden of provision.
The extent to which women control the income they earn is hardly
known, especially in joint-headed households. This also implies that
women’s control of cash-earning food products is even in doubt as they
may be “influenced” by men to dispose of such products for cash other than
reserve them for household consumption. Considering this possibility,
therefore, it may be important for us to determine whom actually controls
the food products available at family level and the cash earned by women.
As Charlton (1984:77) notes, the relevance of FAO analytical
framework is derived in part from its utility in analysing the discrepancy
between basic minimum needs and what the family is able to actually
provide. This analysis explores the relationship between an activity (e.g.
Vegetable farming, food production, food preparation/allocation, childcare,
etc) and the system of obligations and rights, thereby imputing into the
analysis issues of structural relationships within and between households
and their implications for access to resources by age and sex.
The model, as presented, exemplifies the features of a social map
with family needs (food, in our specific context) as the primary
phenomenon determined by a complex of practices (division of
responsibility according to age and sex) and social mechanisms (socially
acceptable productive activities like farming, petty trading, formal sector
employment, etc). These practices and mechanisms are further shaped by
beliefs and values from the wider cultural identity which have to do with the
distribution of influence over available resources for the satisfaction of
need.
2.7 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER
In this chapter, the important parts of the study have been our
concern, viz. review of relevant literature and presentation of the theoretical
framework of the study. The review of literature has both theoretical and
empirical dimensions. Food security is an emerging theme in social
development literature and has, therefore, been subject of little research.
However, because of its multiplier development implications, there have
been multi-dimensional and inter-disciplinary responses, albeit inadequate,
with regards to the role of gender within food systems.
The food culture of African societies shows that gender is an all-
important variable that cannot be ignored. The review has presented the
various forms women influence household food security in the areas of
food production, procurement and alimentation. Attention has been paid to
vegetable farming as a resourceful aspect of viable food procurement and
food entitlements within the sphere of female responsibility.
The review has looked at urban agriculture as a common
phenomenon inspite of loss of cropland to industrialisation and
urbanisation. However, a discussion of existing constraints shows that
women’s farming activities generally tend to be constrained by several
factors, including lack of land, credit, labour, extension services, improved
technologies, etc. A review on farming systems has been included
because it serves as the infrastructure upon which vegetable production
thrives coupled with the unique conditions of urban farming. The literature
revea|s that while women are primary food providers they do this often in
underprivileged conditions.
The theoretical framework used in this study has also been discussed
in this chapter, viz. the human rights perspective and the Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) model for women food-related activities.
Both have been used to provide not only a theoretical perspective for the
study but a conceptual scheme for appraising food, gender, gender-related
activities and other relevant variables within the food security matrix. There
is a strong scientific conviction therefore that, with the dearth of researches
in this area, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) theoretical
framework meets the theoretical needs of this study.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN
The design for this research is the descriptive research design.
Descriptive research is concerned with the collection of data for the
purpose of describing and interpreting existing conditions, prevailing
practices, beliefs, attitudes, on-going process, etc. Its central purpose is not
the description of what is but the discovering of meaning (Odu and
Ihejiamaizu, 2001:134).
The descriptive research design permits the adoption of the survey
methodology and, therefore, has the potential of aiding the researcher
gather data about variables of the study and their characteristics for the
purpose of testing significant relationships between the variables. Central
to this design are the sample design, methods of data collection, procedure
of data collection and methods of data analysis.
3.2 SAMPLE DESIGN
The study population comprises women who participate in green leaf
vegetable farming and supply in Calabar reached at the farm locations.
The study sample targeted one hundred (100) respondents reached
primarily through purposive sampling technique. This technique is
characterised by the use of judgement and deliberate effort to obtain
representative sample by including typical areas or groups in the sample
selected. Put differently, by this technique, the sample is picked in such a
way that some specific characteristics are kept in mind (Odu and
Ihejiamaizu, 2001:16).
The use of the purposive sample technique is justified by several
reasons considering the characteristics of the vegetable farms and discrete
supply avenues of the products. During a pre-field work involving the listing
of the vegetable farm locations within the study area, it was discovered that
the farm plots were widely dispersed in location, varied in sizes, cultivated
on full-and part-time basis. Besides, it was also discovered that the supply
of vegetables to consumers or retailers did not follow strictly determinate
avenues as they could be sold wholesale or retail at the farm locations or at
the market locations. As a result of these factors, utilising purposive
sampling to reach the targeted respondents permitted the inclusion of
farms that represented all observed differences or characteristics.
As pre-field insights revealed, the observation units were dispersed.
Considering this, therefore, purposive sampling entailed visiting each of the
locations after listing and administering the instrument on those found on
the spot either as owners of the farm produce or as farm labour. Where
buyers of the produce were reached they were also included in the sample
to expand our insights into the relevant variables of the study.
3.3 METHODOLOGY
The study adopted a combination of both quantitative and qualitative
research instruments. This triangulation in methodology was relevant in
gathering data that would facilitate the testing of research hypotheses while
helping in exploring more deeply into the phenomenon under study. To this
end, the primary instruments used were a combination of observational and
survey research methods.
3.3.1 OBSERVATION
Observations are a relevant qualitative method that gives the
researcher first-hand encounter with his observation elements or
respondents within the context of the situation. The scientific strength of
this method lies in the researcher’s ability to design a modus operandi for
the observation-one which will clearly delineate what is to be observed,
how to observe, when to observe, and where to observe. In the case of
this study, participant observation was employed.
The two variants of participant observation employed were the
participant-as-observer and the observer-as-participant forms. In the first
variant, the researcher took part in the activities of the observational
elements while observing. In the second variant, the researcher observed
the elements without taking part in their activities. The observational
methods were used to study the women during their farming activities at
their farm locations and their supply activities.
3.3.2 SURVEY
The interview schedule formed the basic survey method for the
collection of quantitative data needed for the study. The design was the
questionnaire – that is a collection of pre-arranged questions in a schedule.
It was structured, some with close-ended questions involving exhaustive
and mutually exclusive responses while the open-ended questions allowed
flexible responses from the respondents when such responses were most
advantageous (Babbie 1986: 127-9). Due to the educational status of the
majority of the respondents and their apparent lack of time for formal
interview sessions, the survey instrument served basically as interview
schedule guide with the researcher asking and recording their responses
accordingly. This technique was the most generally used, especially
because of its flexibility, in obtaining answers to questions from
respondents with specific focus on their role as vegetable farmers.
Because the method was made to be as highly flexible as possible within
the bounds of scientific research, it also enabled the researcher to probe
more into the responses. The intent was to utilise the exploratory
potentials of the observational method within a pre-constructed framework
to gather relevant data.
3.4 METHODS OF DATA ANALYSIS AND HYPOTHESES TESTING
The arbitrary responses of the observation elements were managed
through scoring into the data matrix. The summarised data formed the
basis for statistical computation. To achieve the objectives of the study,
tabulation and cross-tabulation of responses on different criteria were done.
Proportional ranges indexed the tables. The test of hypotheses on the
other hand was done though the use of relevant statistical tests such as
chi-square and Pearson Product Moment correlation coefficient.
3.5 FIELD PROBLEMS AND LIMITATIONS
Early attempts to engage the women in discussions during any period
of the day, especially from 12 noon upwards, yielded little results. It was
observed that the women were much more welcoming during their most
active period on the farm (that is, between 7.am and 11 am). This,
however, has its challenge. Not only were they more welcoming during
these early hours, they expected and even demanded that the discussion
session be as fluid or informal as possible such that it is not considered in
any way as a constraint to their work. The researcher, conscious of this,
was conscious to meet their expectation while achieving the purpose of the
study.
Another challenge was the dispersion in farm locations. The stream
of farm locations covered include the Murtala Mohammed Highway
stretching from around Streamwood through Ekorinim road down to Ikot
Ansa axis; Ibom layout plots, the Polytechnic and the Anantigha area. It
was difficult for the researcher to recruit the services of research assistants
who would be able to meet the research needs of the study. This difficulty
was underscored by finance and time restraints in engaging and training
the research assistants. The limitation arising from this is that the targeted
sample of one hundred could not be met. However, since the study is
primarily qualitative in nature, the insights from the eighty-two respondents
are especially relevant and equally valid.
Another challenge in the field was that the majority of the women
regarded the researcher as an extension worker and also made some
significant demands: the provision of fertilizer for their farm land and
organizing of a literacy class for them where they could learn simple farm
record-keeping. The researcher within the context of the research could not
meet these demands. The researcher could only provide the explanation
that the on-going study was meant for the purpose of calling attention to
their needs with the hope that appropriate agencies will respond
accordingly. On the whole, in spite of the heavy rains in town within the
period and the dispersed nature of farm plots, the field experience was
interesting and the insight empirically relevant. However, there is a
limitation. While the study reflects typical characteristics in Calabar its
findings may not be clearly generalized to other towns or urban areas
depending on the level of urbanization, government policies,
industrialization, etc.
3.6 HYPOTHESES Four hypotheses were proposed for this study as follows:-
Hypothesis I: Women’s ethnic origin has no significant impact on their involvement in farming activities in Calabar.
Hypothesis II: Women’s marital status has no significant impact on the
number of times members of household feed in a day. Hypothesis III: Land ownership has no significant impact on women
involvement in farming activities in Calabar
Hypothesis IV: There is no significant relationship between women and their household accessibility to food in Calabar.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS
4.1 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF DATA
This chapter is on the general description, analysis and discussion of
the data collected from the field through the use of interview schedule. It is
divided into three sections. The first is presentation and analysis of data.
This section uses tables and figures such as pie charts, histogram and
graph to provide a pictorial presentation of data collected. Statistical
calculations in this section are proportional ranges (percentages).
In the second section of the chapter, hypothesis by hypothesis testing
of the variables of the data is presented. This section uses inferential
statistics in its analysis and makes inferences about the nature of
relationships between variables and their operation in line with the overall
objectives of the study. The statistical tests employed are the chi-square
(X2) test, Pearson product moment correlation co-efficient.
The third section provides a discussion of the analysed data. This
was also enriched by field insights from observations and comparative data
from earlier studies. It is divided into four headings, viz. Demographic and
Socio-economic Characteristics of Vegetable Farmers in Calabar
Metropolis; Importance of Vegetable Farming for Household Food Security
in Calabar; and Constraints faced by the Vegetable Farmers.
4.2 PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA TABLE 4.2.1: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONDENTS BY AGE.
Age Respondent Percentage
26-30 3 3.7
31-35 10 12.2
36-40 15 18.3
41-45 7 8.5
46-50 5 6.1
51 and above 42 51.2
Total 82 100
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Freq
uenc
y
26-30 31-35 36-40 41-45 46-50 51 &aboveAges
Figure 4.2.1: Histogram showing the ages of farmers within the study group
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Freq
uenc
y
26-30 31-35 36-40 41-45 46-50 51 &aboveAges
Figure 4.2.1: Histogram showing the ages of farmers within the study group
From the data in Table 4.2.1 above, three of the respondents
(representing 3.7) were aged 26-30, ten (12.7%) aged 31-35, fifteen
(18.3%) aged 36-40 and seven (8.5%) aged 41-45. Those aged 46-50 were
five (6.1%) while 51.2% of the total sample were aged 51 and above. In all
the mean age of the respondents was about 46 years. Figure 4.2.1
pictorially presents the data in table 4.2.1.
TABLE 4.2.2: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONDENTS BY MARITAL STATUS.
Marital status Respondents Percentage
Single 15 18.3
Married 47 57.3
Divorced/Separated 5 6.1
Widow 15 18.3
Total 82 100
As the table 4.2.2 indicates, over half of the vegetable farmers
(precisely 57.3%) were married while a small percentage (6.1%) were
divorced or separated. The single and widowed categories each had
(18.3%) share of the sample
TABLE 4.2.3: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONDENTS BY ETHNIC GROUP
Ethnic group of farmers
Respondents Percentage SECTOR
Efik 5 6.1 22o
Ejagham 19 23.2 83o
Ibibio 45 54.8 198o
Annang 9 11.0 40o
Any Other 4 4.9 17o
Total 82 100 360o
FIGURE 4.2.2: A PIE CHART SHOWS THE DIFFERENT SECTORS OF RESPONDENTS BY ETHNIC GROUP.
EfikEjaghamIbibioAnnangOther
FIGURE 4.2.2: A PIE CHART SHOWS THE DIFFERENT SECTORS OF RESPONDENTS BY ETHNIC GROUP.
EfikEjaghamIbibioAnnangOther
4.9% 11% 6.1% 23% 54%
From the table (4.2.3) and figure (4.2.2) above, the majority of the
vegetable farmers were of Ibibio ethnic stock (54.8%), followed by the
Annang (11%) while the Efik were only 5(6.1%), Ejagham 19(23.2%) and
other ethnic groups not listed 4(4.9%). The data as discussed is pictorially
shown on a bar chart in figure 4.2.2.
TABLE 4.2.4: DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONDENTS BY LEVEL OF EDUCATION.
LEVEL OF EDUCATION RESPONDENTS
PERCENTAGE
SECTOR
Primary education incomplete
(A)
24 29.3
105o
Primary education complete
(B)
33 40.2
145o
Secondary education
incomplete (C)
20 24.4
88o
Secondary education complete
(D)
5 6.1
22o
Tertiary education 0 0 0
Total 82 100 360o
ABCD
ABCD
= 105
= 145
= 88
= 22
6.1%
29.3% 24.4% 40.2%
FIGURE 4.2.3: A PIE CHART WITH SECTORS SHOWING RESPONDENTS’
LEVEL OF EDUCATION.
From the table (4.2.4) and figure (4.2.3) above only five respondents
or 6% of the total sample have had completed secondary education, 24.4%
had not. Those with complete primary education were 40.2% while those
with incomplete were 29.3%. Tertiary education was not represented in the
sample. A pie chart of the figures in table 4.2.4 is given in figure 4.2.3.
TABLE 4.2.5: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONDENTS BY ADDITIONAL OCCUPATION.
Additional occupation Respondents Percentage
Trading 62 75.6
Civil Servant 15 18.3
None 4 4.9
Any other 1 1.2
Total 82 100
Table 4.2.5 above shows that respondents who engaged in trading as
additional occupation were 62(75.8%) and civil service 15(18.3%). Those
without any additional occupation were 4(4.9%) while other occupation(s)
not listed had only one (1.2%) respondent.
TABLE 4.2.6: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF VEGETABLES CULTIVATED.
Type of Vegetable
Frequency
Percentage Botanical Name
English Name
Efik Name
Talinium
triangulare
Water-
leaf
Mmo-
mon-
ikon
82 100
Telfaria
Occidentalis
Fluted
pumpkin
Ikon-
ubon
68 82.9
Amaranthus
hybridus
Spinach
(green)
Etinyun 7 8.5
Piper
guineense
Hot leaf Etinkeni 8 9.7
Ocimum spp Scent
leaf
Nton 11 13.4
Any other (e.g.
manihot
utilisima)
Cassava Iwa 11 13.4
Figure 4.2.6: A graph showing the No. of plots cultivated by farmers within the study frame
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
.1-3 .4-6 .7-9 .10-12 .13-15 .16-18 .19-21 22+
GROUP(X)
No.
of P
lots
Figure 4.2.6: A graph showing the No. of plots cultivated by farmers within the study frame
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
.1-3 .4-6 .7-9 .10-12 .13-15 .16-18 .19-21 22+
GROUP(X)
No.
of P
lots
0 4 0 6 9 14 20 29
Table 4.2.6 shows that all respondents – 82 (100%) had Talinium
Triangulare (Water-leaf) planted on their plots. The next most cultivated
crop was the Telfaria Occidentalis (fluted pumpkin) 86 (82.9%) followed by
Ocimum spp (Scent leaf), Piper guineense (hot leaf) 8 (9.7%) and
Amaranthus hybridus (Spinach) 7. Figure 4.2.6 (8.5%). Other crops, but not
vegetables, cultivated included cassava and pineapple. The number of
plots cultivated is pictorially represented in Figure 4.2.6.
TABLE 4.2.7: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONDENTS BY LENGTH OF TIME (IN YEARS) OF INVOLVEMENT IN FARMING ACTIVITIES IN CALABAR.
Number of Years in Vegetable Farming
Respondents Percentage
Under a year 11 13.4
1-2 years 35 42.7
3-4 years 5 6.1
5-6 years 14 17.1
7-8 years 4 4.9
9-10 years 0 0
More than 10 years 13 15.8
Total 82 100
The table (4.2.7) shows that eleven respondents (13.4%) have spent
less than a year in vegetable farming in Calabar, thirty-five (42.7%)
between one and two years, five (6.1%) between three and four years and
fourteen (17.1%) between five and six years. Those who have spent
between seven and eight years were four (4.9%) while thirteen (15.8%)
have spent eleven years and above. None of the respondents has spent
between nine and ten years.
TABLE 4.2.8: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONDENTS APPROXIMATE NUMBER OF HOURS SPENT ON FARMS WORK DAILY.
Number of Hours Respondents Percentage
1-2 hours 10 1.5
3-4 hours 38 3.5
5-6 hours 14 5.5
7-8 hours 19 7.5
9 hours and above 0 9.5
Total 81 100
As shown by the table above (4.2.8) ten respondents (12.2%) spent
1-2 hours on farm work daily, thirty eight (46.3%) between 33-4 hours,
fourteen (17.1%) 5.6 hours and nineteen (23.2%) between 7 and 8 hours.
None had spent up to nine hours or more. The means hours spent at work
was calculate as 4.5 hours.
TABLE 4.2.9: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION TABLE OF RESPONDENTS
BY NUMBER OF PLOTS CULTIVATED.
Number of Plots Respondents Percentage
1-3 29 35.3
4-6 20 24.4
7-9 14 17.1
10-12 9 11.0
13-15 6 7.3
16-18 0 0.0
19-21 4 4.9
22 and above 0 0.0
Total 82 100
As table 4.2.9 above reveals, 35.3% of the respondents cultivated
between 1 and 3 plots, 24.4% between 4 and 6 plots and 17.1% between 7
and 9 plots. Those who planted 13-15 plots, 7.3% and those who had
between 19 and 21 plots constituted only 4.9% of the sample. None
cultivated 16-18 plots or had a number of plots above twenty-one. The
mean number of plots cultivated was 6.5. The frequency polynomial graph
(figure 4.2.6) shows a downward slope as one moves from those who
cultivated 1-3 to 22 and above plots.
TABLE 4.2.10: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONDENTS BY SOURCE (S) OF FARM LABOUR USUALLY EMPLOYED.
Type of Labour Employed Respondents Percentage
Woman and children’s 15 18.3
Woman, children and hired 20 24.4
Woman and hired 14 17.1
Woman only 33 40.2
Friends 0 0
Husband 0 0
Total 82 100
From the table (4.2.10) above it would be seen that 33 respondents
or 40.2% work alone on the farm without assistance of additional labour,
20(14.4%) utilized both children and hired labour in combination with their,
15(18.3%) utilized only children’s labour in combination with theirs,
14(17.1%) used hired labour to complement theirs. None engaged the
labour of friends or husbands.
TABLE 4.2.11: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF FARMERS’ PREFERENCE FOR EMPLOYMENT BY SECTOR.
Occupational Preference Respondents Percentage Sector
Prefer farming 62 75.6 272o
Prefer formal sector employment 15 18.3 65o
No response 5 6.1 23o
Total 82 100
6.2% = 272 = 65 = 23
A
B
C
A
B
C
75.6% 75.6% FIGURE 4.2.5: A PIE CHART SHOWING FARMERS PREFERENCE FOR FARMING AND FORMAL SECTOR EMPLOYMENT.
In table (4.2.11) above, 62 (75.6%) of the respondents showed
preference for farming to formal sector employment while 15 (18.3%)
preferred the later; 5 (6.1%) of the respondents did not express their
preference for any sector. Figure 4.2.5 pictorially presents the data as
discussed.
TABLE 4.2.12: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONDENTS BY APPROXIMATED DISTANCE BETWEEN HOME AND FARM (IN KILOMETERS).
Distance Between Home and Farm
Respondents Percentage
Less than 1 km 15 18.3
1-3 km 63 76.8
4-6 km 4 4.9
7-9 km 0 0
10-12 km 0 0
More than 12 km 0 0
Total 82 100
Table 4.2.12 shows that 63 of the farmers surveyed (representing
76.8% of the sample) had their farmlands between one and three
kilometers from their homes while fifteen (18.3%) farmed less than one
kilometer from their homes. Four of the respondents (4.9%) lived 4-6
kilometers from their farms while none farmed more than seven kilometers
from their homes.
TABLE 4.2.13: PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED IN FARMING.
Problems Encountered Respondents Percentage
Lack of suitable land to increase
production
14 17.1
Small-scale farm plots 40 48.8
Inefficient tools/implements 15 18.3
High incidence of pests, weeds
and diseases
10 12.2
Lack of adequate input
(fertilizer, high yielding crop
varieties, chemicals, manure)
49 59.8
Shortage of labour 25 30.5
Lack of access to credit 51 62.2
Others 18 21.9
Asked to identify the various problems they encountered as farmers
(Table 4.2.13) lack of access to credit was identified as a problem for
62.2% of the sample, lack of adequate inputs as problem for 59.8%, small-
sized farm plots a problem for 48.8%, shortage of labour a problem for
30.5%, inefficient tools/implement a problem for 18.3%, lack of suitable
land to increase production and high incidence of pests, weeds and
diseases problems for 17.1% and 12.2% of the sample respectively. Other
problems not categorized were identified by 21.9% of the sample.
TABLE 4.2.14: EVER HAD ACCESS TO EXTENSION SERVICE (S).
Access to Extension Services
Respondents Percentage
Yes 9 11
No 67 81.7
No Response 6 7.3
Total 82 100
Asked if they have ever received any extension services of any sort,
Table 4.2.14 reveals that only nine women (11%) had ever, sixty-seven
(81.7%) had never and six (7.3%) gave no definite response.
TABLE 4.2.15: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONDENTS RECEIVING SUPPORT FROM THEIR HUSBANDS (MARRIED CATEGORY ONLY).
Help from Husband in Providing Food
Respondents Percentage
Receiving enough help 36 76.6
Not receiving enough help 10 21.3
No response 1 2.1
Total 47 100
From the table (4.2.15), 36 of the married women (representing
76.6% of that category) admitted to receiving enough help from their
husbands in providing household food while 10 (representing 21.3%) said
they were not receiving enough help. One respondent (2.1%) declined from
responding to the question.
TABLE 4.2.16: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONDENTS BY FAMILY’S VEGETABLE CONSUMPTION RATE.
Family Consumption of Vegetable
Respondents Percentage
Daily 27 32.9
Twice a week O
Weekly 15 18.3
As often as possible or needed 40 48.8
Total 82 100
According to Table 4.2.16, the rate of vegetable consumption as
indexed by the above table shows that vegetable was consumed as often
as possible or needed by forty of the respondents (that is, 48.8%) while
32.9% consumed it on a daily basis. Only 18.3% consumed vegetables on
a weekly basis. None consumed it only twice a week.
TABLE 4.2.17: FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF RESPONDENTS BY PRIMARY SOURCE (S) OF FOOD.
Primary Sources of Food Respondents Percentage
Purchasing and own
production
45
54.9
Purchasing and barter 4 4.9
Purchasing alone 33 40.2
Total 82 100
As shown by Table 4.2.17, all the women admitted to obtaining their
food primarily through purchasing. Thirty-three of them (40.2%) obtain it
solely from purchasing while others obtain food primarily from purchasing in
combination with either own production (54.9%) or barter (4.9%).
TABLE 4.2.18: VIABILITY OF PRIMARY SOURCE (S) OF
FOOD.
Viability of Primary Sources of Food
Respondents Percentage
Very viable 26 31.7
Averagely viable 56 68.3
Not viable 0 0
Total 82 100
As Table 4.2.18 below demonstrates, 68.3% of the respondents
regarded their sources of food as being averagely viable while 32. 7%
considered it very viable. None considered their sources as being “not
viable”. This table is presented in relation to Table 4.2.17.
4.3: TEST OF HYPOTHESIS
Four hypothesis are tested in this study with relevant statistical tests
as follows:-
Hypothesis I: Women’s ethnic origin has no significant impact on their
involvement in farming activities in Calalar. Independent variable: Ethnic Origin Dependent variable: Farming activities Test statistic: Chi-square (x2)
Hypothesis II: Women’s marital status has no significant impact on the
number of times members of household feed in a day. Independent variable: Marital status Dependent variable: Number of times family feed in a
day. Test statistic: Chi-Square (x2)
Hypothesis III: Land ownership has no significant impact on women
involvement in farming activities in Calabar Independent variable: Land ownership
Dependent variable: Farming activities
Test statistic: Chi-Square (x2).
Hypothesis IV: There is no significant relationship between women and their household accessibility to food in Calabar. Variables: Women
Accessibility to food
Test statistic: Pearson product moment co-efficient correlation.
Table 4.3.1
5X3 CONTINGENCY X2 ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF WOMEN’S
ETHNIC ORIGIN ON THEIR INVOLVEMENT IN FARMING ACTIVITIES.
Ethnic Origin Involvement in farming activities High Average Low Total X2 Calculated. Fo Fe Fo Fe Fo Fe
15.61
Efik 2 2.1 2 1.6 1 1.4 5 Ejagham 4 8.2 10 6.2 5 4.6 19 Ibibio 27 19.2 8 14.9 10 10.9 45 Annang 1 3.8 5 2.9 3 2.2 9 Others 1 1.7 2 1.4 1 0.9 4 Total 23 27 20 82
* Figures on these columns were obtained through the use of the mean (x) formula by weighting to obtain observed (Fo) and expected (Fe) values for chi-square analysis. **This is the actual raw score of respondents obtained from the field not weighted representing the sum of the observed values for each of the ethnic group. :. X2cal =15.61 Testing at 95% confidence level (0.05)
df =8 Critical value =15.50 Decision: The null hypothesis is rejected because the calculated value is
greater than the critical value. Following the above decision, we can
conclude that, at 95% confidence level, women’s ethnic origin has
significant impact on their involvement in farming activities in Calabar.
Stated otherwise, the agricultural workforce of Calabar is predominantly
supplied by the non-indigenes, the largest of these groups being the Ibibio
who constitute over half of the total respondents.
Table 4.3.2 4 X 3 CONTINGENCY X2 ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF MARITAL STATUS ON THE NUMBER OF TIMES MEMBERS OF HOUSEHOLD FEED IN A DAY.
Marital Status Number of times members of household feed Twice Thrice Others Total X2 Calculated. Fo Fe Fo Fe Fo Fe
28.57
Single 5 4.20 10 8.23 0 2.56 15 Married 8 12.18 30 25.79 9 8.02 47 Divorced/ Separated
0
1.40
5
2.74
0
0.85
5
Widowed 10 4.20 0 8.23 5 2.56 15 Total 23 45 14 82
*These columns are the raw score as obtained from the field representing the observed values. **These columns are the expected values of their corresponding observed values calculated to test the chi-square. ***This column shows the sum of the observed values for each of the marital statuses. :. X2cal =28.57 Testing at 95% confidence level (0.05)
df =6
Critical value =12.59 Decision: The null hypothesis is rejected because the calculated value is
greater than the critical value. Following the above decision, table 5.3.2
reveals that marital status of women has significant impact on the number
of times members of their households feed in a day. The table reveals that
the relationship between the two variables cannot be due to chance.
Table 4.3.3: 4 X 3 CONTINGENCY X2 ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF LAND OWNERSHIP ON WOMEN INVOLVEMENT IN FARMING ACTIVITIES.
Land Ownership
Involvement in farming activities
High Average Low Total X2 Calculated. Fo Fe Fo Fe Fo Fe
15.61
Family 3 2.6 2 2.1 1 1.4 6 Friends 2 7.5 13 6.0 2 3.9 17 Share-cropping
2
4.8
7
3.9
2
2.5
11
Others 29 21.1 7 17.0 12 11.2 48 Total 36 29 19 82
*Figures on these columns were obtained through the use of the mean (x2) formula by weighting to obtain observed (Fo) and expected (Fe) values for chi-square analysis. **This is the actual raw score of respondents obtained from the field not weighted representing the sum of the observed values for each of the ethnic group. :. X2cal =26.39 Testing 95% confidence level (0.05) df =6 Critical value =12.59 Decision: The null hypothesis is rejected because the calculated value is
greater than the critical value.
As table 5.3.3 demonstrates, the relationship between land ownership
and women involvement in farming activities cannot be due to chance. The
findings, otherwise, suggest that women involvement in farming activities is
likely to be correspondingly significant in response to ownership of land.
This is even moreso when it is recognized that none of the respondents
actually owned the land they cultivated.
Table 4.3.4: PEARSON PRODUCT MOMENT CORRELATION COEFFICIENT (R) ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WOMEN AND THEIR HOUSEHOLD ACCESSIBILITY TO FOOD.
Variables N ∑x
∑y ∑x2 ∑y2
∑xy r value
Women 82 462 2913 Household Accessibility to food
82
438
2796
2824
0.9470
*These figures were derived from summation of entire scores on the data matrix representing each variable. **These figures were derived from squaring the figures derived summation of entire scores on the data matrix representing each variable. :. r Value =0.9470 Testing at 95% confidence level (0.05) df =80 Critical value =0.217
Decision: Since the r-value is greater than the critical value, the null
hypothesis is rejected. This means that there exists a high positive
relationship between women and their household accessibility to food. This
test of relationship does not however show us the causal pattern in the
sense that it cannot clearly confirm that women necessarily provide
household food. Rather, it suggests that they play significant role in
facilitating household accessibility to food.
4.4: DISCUSSION
In this chapter, the general discussion of findings of the study is
presented. The discussion derives primarily from the data as presented in
the previous chapter. However, since the methodology of the study
accommodated triangulation of qualitative and quantitative techniques, field
insights from observation and transect walk will also enrich the discussion.
The following are the sub-headings of the discussion, viz:
i Demographic and socio-economic characteristics of vegetable
farmers in Calabar metropolis.
ii Farming practices in Calabar metropolis
iii Importance of vegetable farming for household food security in
Calabar
iv Constraints faced by the vegetable farmers.
4.4.1: DEMOGRAPHIC AND SOCIO- ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS
OF VEGETABLE FARMERS IN CALABAR METROPOLIS
The feminization of food crop production has been observed as a
general pattern throughout sub-Sahara Africa (cf Muntemba, 1982; Carr,
1991; Ghana-Cida Grains Development Project, 1993; Saito, 1994;
Ezumah and Domenico, 1995; United Nations Economic Commission for
Africa, 1996; Foeken and Mwangi, 1998). The research findings strengthen
the plausible argument that women’s preponderance of the farming sector
may be conditioned by several factors such as low income status, low
literacy level, restricted employment opportunities, etc. If in the metropolis
food availability at the household level is determined primarily by cash
(Food and Agriculture Organisation, 1987), and women generally tend to
have low income either because formal sector employment is skewed
against them (cf Table 4.2.5), or because they lack requisite literacy level to
be meaningfully engaged by the formal sector (Table 4.2.4), it is most likely
they will resort to informal sector activities such as farming or trading and in
some cases combine both in order to earn additional income, which is used
mainly for food.
As demonstrated by the first hypothesis (Table 4.3.1) women’s ethnic
origin has significant impact on their involvement in farming activities in
Calabar. Table 4.2.3 and figure 4.2.2 specifically reveal that the large
majority of the farmers are not aboriginal to Calabar. Rather, they are
mainly of the migrant stock, the majority being the Ibibio who constitute
54.8% of the total workforce. They, in combination with Annang who
constitute 11% of the total sample, are migrants from the neighboring Akwa
Ibom State. The Efik who are the original inhabitants constitute only 6.1%
of the workforce. As a migrant group the Ibibio have been found to
predominantly supply the agricultural workforce in Akpabuyo, a rural Efik
habitation (Charles 1993). The low participation of aboriginal groups in
farming activities in their locality and the predominance of a migrant group
has also been found to characterize farming elsewhere in sub-Sahara
Africa: an example being Nairobi (cf) Foeken and Mwangi :1998).
The fact that the migrants, especially the Ibibio, preponderate farming
activities in Calabar might have been given impetus to by the Ibibio and the
Efik being neighbours, their having linguistic affinity, hospitality of the host
group and the growing emphasis of native–settler status differences which
restrict the migrant from having access to formal sector employment. Lack
of formal sector employment opportunities may not fully explain the
situation. Given that many natives (Efik) may be unemployed in the formal
sector, as a reflection of general mass unemployment situation in the
country, the low representation of the Efiks in the agricultural sector in both
rural and urban areas may be due to their lack of interest in farming
activities.
Apart from levels of education and ethnic grouping, the mean age of
the respondents was found to be forty-six (Table 4.2.1 and Figure 4.2.1).
Besides, a greater share of the sample (57.3%) were married (Table 4.2.2)
while others were either never married (single), divorced/separated or
widowed. The last three groups, taken as a single set, more obviously
represent female-headed households. As a group they represent a
significant category on which the burden of viably providing household food
is juxtaposed with household need for health, education, etc. For many
poor women who lack the presence of an adult man in the house, but have
children or wards to feed, farming is something of a last resort (Foeken and
Mwangi 1998).
The significant number of female-headed households coupled with
their low level of education limits family income and presages an
impediment to the well-being of their families (cf Snyder 1990). Even
households with the presence of an adult man are not insulated from the
challenges of meeting household food security. Table 4.2.15 of the study
shows that about 21.3% of the married women were not receiving enough
support from their husbands in providing household food. This is supported
somewhat by findings of other researchers. For instance Dey (1984)
discovered that husband and wife in Africa often have separate incomes
and expenses with the wife’s incomes directed at ensuring daily food
supplies. Clark’s (1985) findings reveal that additions to women’s income
go directly into improving family food security while men more often use
additional income for consumer goods or prestige purposes.
4.4.2: FARMING PRACTICES IN CALABAR METROPOLIS
The vegetable farming system as discovered in this study presents
some peculiarities when information on preparation, types of crops, surface
on which crops are cultivated, labour involved, planting and harvesting
period, implements used, inputs, etc are considered. Vegetable production
is an all-year round activity in Calabar and is carried out as part of the
buffer system to satisfy the food needs of the populace.
The women cultivate a number of green leaf vegetables. As Table
4.2.6 and figure 4.2.4 reveal all the women studied had Talinium triangulare
on their farm. The next most common type was Telfaria Occidentalis (cf
Plate II). Other vegetables found but not widely cultivated were Amaranthus
hybridus, Piper guineense and Ocimumspp. The predominance and
distribution of the respective vegetables are reflective of the food culture of
the local population. The Talinium triangulare is used in preparing
vegetable broth and is combined with the Telfaria occidentals in preparing
the dish which has assumed a national status – edikan ikon. Partially-
cooked Telfaria broth has been recommended and accepted as a
nutritionally fitting food. Food and Agriculture Organisation (1992) records
that in Guinea, women found they had healthier children after they started
feeding their children locally available vegetables rich in vitamin A. The
piper guineense and Ocimum spp, on the other hand, are used mainly as
spices and thus, not considered of great economic importance. Beyond
this, it could be argued, a lá Joy and Wilberly (1979, cited in Charles, 1993)
that the widespread cultivation of the Talinium and Telfaria is influenced by
environmental, economic, technical and human factors.
Plate I: Beds of Telfaria Occidentalis
This shows a planting surface for Telfaria Occidentalis (fluted pumpkin).
The crop is planted on beds of 90 x 102 inches and the spacing in-between
ranges from 30 to 40 inches. The fluted pumpkin is cultivated through a
seed and starts maturing within four (4) weeks after cultivation for
consumption.
Plate II: Ridges of Telfaria Occidentalis
This shows another planting surface of the Telfaria Occidentalis
(fluted pumpkin). This is a ridge measuring 427 inches in length and the
spacing of the crop is between 40 and 50 inches. The crop could be
planted in-between yam stands but with increasing spacing.
Plate III: Mature Pods of Telfaria Occidentalis
These are mature pods of the Telfaria Occidentalis (fluted pumpkin). An
average pod contains between 40 and 50 seeds. At maturity, the pod is
broken and the seeds inside dried out for about three days before being
planted. After planting, the pod gets mature around the 8th to 9th month.
Plate IV: Tilled Bed Prepared for Planting Talinium Triangulare
This shows a bed surface prepared for the cultivation of the Talinium
Triangulare (water-leaf). Immediately adjoining the uncultivated bed is a
cultivated surface of the food crop. The bed covers a land surface
measuring approximately 250x420 inches with a raised height of about 5
inches from the level ground. The stalk of the Talinium (with or without the
leaves) is what is planted.
Plate V: Beds of Talinium Traingulare
The above shows several beds where the Talinium Triangulare (water leaf)
is cultivated. The beds averagely measure about 196x312 inches and are
clearly demarcated from each other. This demarcation serves several
purposes. It could indicate ownership boundaries, facilitate easy traverse of
the plots and serves as a thorough-fare for the flow of excess rain water.
Plate VI: Mounds of Talinium Triangulare
This is another planting surface of the Talinium Triangulare (water leaf): a
small mound-like surface (of round or rectangular shape) measuring 20 x
30 inches approximately. The choice of a planting surface is largely
informed by farmer’s preference but could be influenced by farming
knowledge, available land and land terrain.
Plate VII: A Typical Inter-Cropped Farmland
This shows a farmland where vegetables (water leaf and fluted pumpkin)
are inter-cropped with cassava, okra, yam and maize. This inter-cropping
acts as a formidable resource in enhancing her family food security. The
woman, one of the privileged farmers, simply enjoys eating what she
produces as she directs funds sent to her for feeding by her husband (a
cocoa farmer) towards farming activities. Though she sells some of her
produce, mainly on the farm, she and her family consume a larger
proportion of her total production.
Plate VIII: Women Tying Vegetable Bundles for Sale
This shows two women tying bundles of water-leaf for sale. The farm is
owned by neither. They simply combined their resources to buy and
harvest the bed for sale after which the owner would fertilize the bed, allow
it to regrow and then resale after about two weeks. Depending on the
season, the harvest/marketer pays about N2,000 to N1,200 for Telfaria bed
of about 240 x 410 inches. Sometimes the vegetables are sold at the farm
to other retailers or carried to the market.
Women often employed either the labour of their children or hired
labour. When hired, depending on the size of the farmland, they may spend
up to five hundred naira (N500) as cost of clearing the farmland a day. After
clearing of the land, the beds are prepared and left for some time to be
moistened by rainfall and for micro-nutrients to activate the soil. The beds
and ridges where vegetables are cultivated vary in sizes, depending on
available land and land purchasing power of the farmer. The smaller
mound-like surfaces (plate 6) measure approximately 20 x 30 inches, while
others tend to average 195 – 312 inches. The largest surfaces average
approximately 240 x 410 inches. The total number of plots cultivated by the
eighty-two women studied were 533 with the majority of them (59.7%)
cultivating not more than 6 plots. In a mechanised farming system perhaps
only two or three of them would need to cultivate the entire plots. This small
number of plots has some relationship with the labour used. The small
number f plots could account for the women depending mainly on their
personal labour (40.2%). It could also be that the lack of resources to
obtain hired labour or command the labour of children and husbands
extensively push the women into cultivating smaller number of plots.
Though vegetable cultivation is all-year round, some period of the
year tend to be more favourable to its cultivation than other period. For
instance the water-leaf (Talinium triangulare) is normally cultivated
throughout the year but the heat of dry season (around November) could
affect its yield if enough water is not provided. Again, July - August tends to
be the worst period for the water-leaf due to heavy rainfall which affects the
crop. The farmers consider the start of the rainy season (March – April) and
the receding period of the same season (September – October) as
flourishing period of its cultivation.
The Telfaria Occidentialis (fluted pumpkin) is best grown in muddy
areas because of its need for warm soil. However, with enough water to
irrigate the farmland, its cultivation is widespread in Calabar. The start of
the rainy season makes March the preferred month to commence
cultivation of the Telfaria. When planted it starts maturing for consumption
with four (4) weeks and could be consumed consistently up to the 7th and
8th month. If they are cut from the crown, they quickly re-grow. Around the
ninth month, the crop is left to produce mature pods for next cropping
season. Thus harvesting of vegetable begins about a month after
cultivation and can be continued for almost through out the year.
Haversting and marketing of vegetables, especially the Talinium (water-
leaf) present unique market gardening features. It was discovered that in
many cases, the farmers were not the harvester/marketers. Rather, upon
maturity of the food crop, the farmer “leases” out the bed wholesale” to
marketers who harvest the entire bed. Thereafter, the farmer grooms the
weeks and then sells it again, repeating the circle all over.
Some vegetables are cultivated through the seeds while others
through the stalks. The Telfaria (fluted pumpkin), for instance, flowers and
produces pods (as shown in plate 3) which are left to mature. The mature
pod is broken and the seeds kept for about three days to dry before being
planted. For the Talinium (water-leaf), the stalks (with or without leaves) are
planted. The respondents revealed that the stalks with leaves on them
grow faster than those without leaves.
Vegetables respond very well to organic matter and fertilizer (N.P.K.)
applications when applied in the right quantities. During field observations,
the farmers admitted to using compost manure, animal and chicken
droppings and fertilizer on their farm. Freeman (1991:92) in his study of
cultivation practices are for the most part informal urban agriculture in the
city of Nairobi observed that “cultivation practices are for the most part
basic, traditional, and conservative, being dependent on hand labour with
only a few simple and inexpensive tools.”
During fieldwork, it was discovered that the women used mainly their
hands in planting, weeding and harvesting of their farm plots. Other
implements used were the West African/Indian hoes (for weeding and
sometimes n clearing and making farm surfaces), the spade and household
knife (mainly for cutting the fluted pumpkin). Generally, the women live
somewhat close to their farm, the majority farming three kilometers or less
from their homes. The close distance (between home and farm has
implication for household food provisioning in the sense that it makes it
possible for the women to “run to the farm and get something for the family
to eat”. Besides, it allows the children to join their mothers after school and
enhances the women‘s ability to cater for family/children needs before,
during and after farm work while also having time for other competing
occupations.
The women utilised their personal labour mainly but also engaged the
labour of their children and the services of hired labour. The hours spent on
farm work has implication for the timing of farming operations, which
normally takes place in the morning and/or evening, depending on the
farmer’s other occupations. The daily mean hours they spent on vegetable
farming were 4.5 hours (table 4.2.8). This figure is significantly different
from those discovered Carr (1991) and Saito (1994) who documented that
the average daily hours women spend in Agriculture are 9-10 and 9.0 hours
respectively. This difference is most probably due to the fact that Carr and
Saito based their studies on women in rural areas where food production is
extensive because household food is primarily procured through own
production. on the other hand, women in urban areas obtain household
food primarily through purchase and as such are engaged in other
occupations such as trading and civil service jobs which compete for their
time to obtain needed income (cf. Table 4.2.5). Besides, the present study
focused mainly on vegetable production.
Though the women studied cultivated vegetables intensively as the
main food crops, it was observed that some of them had other food crops
on their plots such as Cassava (Manihot Utilisima), yam (Dioscorea spp),
okro (Hibiscus esculentus) and pepper (piper nigrum). The cultivation of
multiple crops by the women is supported by the argument that the small
farm sector currently produces almost all food crops consumed in Africa
and thus, production of multiple crops enhances family food security (cf.
Clark, 1985). Generally, all the crops cultivated were crops that reach
maturity within one year planting season. Tree and other perennial crops
were not cultivated, probably due to limited space, uncertainty about land
tenure and/or the perception that the crops are meant for demonstrating
ownership boundaries of plots.
The backyard garden, found by Hahn (1986) and Food and
Agriculture Organisation (1992) to be managed chiefly by the women forms
part of the farming practices in Calabar. Two case study illustrations were
identified: one in Ibom Layout and one in State Housing Estate Calabar
Metropolis. The women behind both were civil servants who have attained
tertiary education. However, while one was a female-head of household,
the other was under a male-headed household. The former utilizes mainly
the labour of her aged mother who is left at home while the kids go to
school while the other utilized the labour of a maid-in-residence. On the
two gardens were Talinium and Telfaria though the Female-headed
household also has Ocimum spp, Piper guinernse, Piper nigrum and few
strands of Dioscorea spp. Both kept livestock but the male-headed
household had more birds, reared mainly for sale. The droppings from the
poultry of the latter were used as farm manure on the household garden
and also sold to interested buyers. The vegetables on both gardens were
mainly for auto-consumption.
4.4.3: IMPORTANCE OF VEGETABLE FARMING FOR HOUSEHOLD
FOOD SECURITY IN CALABAR
Vegetable farming is of tri-dimensional importance to most
households –as source of food, income and employment. In determining
the importance it has to household food security, the three dimensions are
mutually re-inforcing. Moreso in an urban area where there is high
unemployment and low income and food has to be purchased. As a source
of food, it is important to consider the following findings. First, vegetables
were either consumed as often as possible or on a daily basis (Table
4.2.16). Secondly, there exists a relationship between women and
household accessibility to food (Table 4.3.4). While much of the produce
was consumed at home, it was not possible for the women to determine in
computational terms the amount of their crop produce consumed by their
households. Through there are no comparative data to establish measures
of dispersion or otherwise between farmers and non-farmers as regards
their food security situation, it is obvious that farming has enhanced the
household food situation of the former.
The above is underscored by the following argument. Food has to be
purchased or produced (Table 4,2,17) the latter requiring that the women
become gainfully employed – a situation which is obviously skewed against
them (Table 4.2.5). Thus, to complement their lack of purchasing power
there resort to farming primarily to increase household’s food security
situation and meet their family responsibility. Moreso because even the
primary sources of food are averagely viable (Table 4.2.18). Though other
crops are cultivated, the popularity of green leaf vegetables (especially the
Talinium and telfaria) is not only to increase the absolute quantity of food
consumed. Its cultivation has a dietary or nutritional dimension in the
sense that fresh vegetables supplement an otherwise nutritionally
inadequate diet and prevent common deficiency diseases (cf Martin. 1979,
Clark. 1985, Messiaen 1992, Food and Agriculture Organisation, 1992 and
Foeken and Mwangi;1998).
Although the survey points to a large proportion of the women’s
produce as being consumed by their household, vegetable production as a
source of income for urban dwellers should not be underestimated. The
majority of the farmers could not determine the income earned form
vegetable production but some estimated N300 to N500 (about four US
dollars) per day and N1, 000 (about eight US dollars) per week depending
on the season and the number of plots they cultivate. Such incomes
earned were identified as either being expended on purchasing food items
they did not produce and/or purchasing farm inputs such as fertilizer
/manure or vegetable stalks. On the whole,0none of the women could, in
clear commercial terms, state the profit they were making from their
farming.
Beyond the above, vegetable production as a source of income could
be argued differently. Since vegetable consumption is a primary feature of
the food culture, it is consumed virtually on a daily basis, implying
therefore, that those who do not produce have to purchase them. This
means that for the women0who produce for auto-consumption they spend
less money on purchasing and thereby obtain “horizontal” income-
horizontal in the sense that the money that would have been originally
expended on vegetable is directed to meeting other competing needs.
Foeken and Mwangi; (1998) refer to this as “fungible income” since it
impacts positively on the material welfare of the household.
As argued earlier ethnic group has significant impact on involvement
in farming activities in Calabar. This impact is partially re-inforced by the
non -availability of formal sector employment space for non-indigenes.
Hence, since many of these women are settlers (non-natives) and are
unable to find a regular job, farming constitutes an alternative way of
employment for them. This obvious lack of formal sector employment
seemingly underlies preference for farming as against formal sector
employment by 75.6% of the women studied (Table 4 4.2 11). Besides, a
few of the women engaged hired labour and pay them even though this
may not be a stable employment. Nevertheless this points to the
possibility of urban farming being developed to a status it could offer
employment opportunities by means of paid jobs.
4.4.4: CONSTRAINTS FACED BY THE VEGETABLE FARMERS
In our review we had earlier identified some constraints faced by
farmers generally. These problems include lack of access to land, labour,
credit, improved technologies, extension services, etc. For the present
study, Table 4.2.13 lists the problems mentioned by the farmers as
constraints facing them. These problems, in their order of severity are lack
of access to credit, lack of adequate inputs and small-scale farm plots.
Other less severe problems included shortage of labour, inefficient
tools/implements, high incidence of pests and others such as lack of
innumeracy and book-keeping skills, occasional excess rain, poor quality of
vegetable stalk and littered human waste on the farmland. Table 4.2.4 also
reveals that 81.7% of the women studies have never had access to any
extension services.
The problems identified above are not peculiar to vegetable or urban
farming alone. Studies done in diverse areas, both urban and rural, have
documented virtually the same set of problems (cf Clark 1980, Muntemba
1982, Awe and Ezumah 1991, Ellis 1992, Saito 1994, Ezumah and
Domenico 1995, Ezumah and Ezumah 1996, United Nations Economic
Commission for Africa, 1996, Foeken and Mwangi 1998, Scherr 1999).
However, there are certain dimensions some of these problems assume to
give them some form of urban-specificity. A case in point is the problem of
land. According to Table 4.3.3 land ownership has significant impact on
women involvement in farming activities. Less than half of the total
sampled women obtained land through family, friends and share-cropping.
The other remaining group 58%) obtained land specifically through rent.
None own the plots they cultivated.
Much of the land brought under cultivation is owned by government
agencies – e.g Seromwood Company, The Polytechnic, The Airport
Authority etc. These agencies sub-let portions of their idle plots or
adjoining spaces in small sizes to the women on a yearly rent through a
sub-contractor. Owing to on-going urban development programmes, real
and imagined fear of eviction and destruction of farmlands is common.
Also, due to cultivation of particular plots year in year out soil fertility
decreases and the yield is low. This confirms Saito’s (1994) discovery that
women’s plots compared to men’s tend to be more dispersed, small in size
and poorer in soil quality.
The problem of accessing credit is widespread and very severe.
Several scholars have argued that women’s relative lack of access to land
and landed properties, compared to the men, had hindered women’s
access to credit (Awe and Ezumah 1991, Ezumah and Ezumah 1996,
United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, 1996, Nwagbara 2002).
In this problem, we discover a self-reinforcing paradox – the land needed to
obtain credit is small-sized, yet credit is needed to expand the size of land.
There have been attempts by the Central Bank of Nigeria through its
Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme (ACGS) to extend micro credit
facilities to the small-scale crop producers such as vegetable farmers. Such
attempt is hampered by cumbersome procedure and the women’s literacy
level - they have to fill a form, belong to Council of Nigerian Farmers, and
even make an initial deposit of twenty five percent of the total facility to be
obtained (cf appendix II,III). The women in the sample frame were not
aware of such facility and when the researcher told them about it, many
dismissed it as being meant for the “privileged” farmers - mainly large-scale
farmers with strong personal networks. Yet, this lack of access to credit
generates and sustains the lack of inputs.
One problem which the researcher found worthy of mention is the
women’s lack of innumeracy and literacy skills. Many of them
acknowledged that their inability to keep account of their expenses on
farming and to even determine the income accruing therefrom was a
consequence of this. They, nevertheless, expressed preparedness to
embrace any programme that would help them overcome the problem.
The importance of such programme in raising the level and quality of
women involvement in the management of their enterprises and their ability
to utilise microcredit in a viable and sustainable way has been underscored
by Enterprise for Development International through implementation of
such programme in Oyo and Osun States (Enterprise For Development
International, 1999). The operation of the above constraints goes to
support the argument that women strive for food security under too often
underprivileged conditions (Food and Agriculture Organisation, 1996:6).
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
5.1: SUMMARY
One basic challenge of human development is addressing the
problem of food insecurity which leads to much human suffering. The
development dimension of the challenge becomes discernible when issues
of gender, age, structural dislocations and other socio-economic variables
are brought into focus. In an attempt to respond to the challenge, the
present study explored the angle of women representing an indispensable
human resource within the matrix of household food security. Drawing
impetus from extant literature, especially on the situation in sub-Sahara
Africa, the study adopted two theoretical approaches – the human rights
perspective to demonstrate that food security is a basic human right and
the FAO model of women food-related activities to examine women’s role
in meeting household or family need for food security.
For manageable empirical assessment, the study was delimited in
scope to vegetable farming as a predominant women activity within the
informal sector in Calabar Metropolis. Through the use of qualitative and
quantitative instrumentation, eighty-two respondents were reached as
observation units, studied and data on them presented and discussed. The
latter was done through the aids of tables, pie charts, graphs and
pictograms. Four hypotheses were proposed and tested with relevant
correlational and statistical tests.
The study reveals strong relationship between women and household
accessibility to food and further demonstrates that ethnic origin and land
ownership independently impact on farming activities in Calabar. Among
other findings, the study discusses the demographic and socio-economic
characteristics of vegetable farmers in Calabar metropolis, their farming
practices, importance of vegetable farming for household food security and
the constraints faced by vegetable farmers. In linking the entire research
process and its findings, the study concludes with a set of priorities for
further research and policy actions in its recommendations.
5.2: RECOMMENDATIONS
The recommendations of this study are two-fold. The first aspect
borders on the relevance of the study in providing directions for further
research. The second borders on human development efforts that would
lead to attainment of food security. The following recommendations are
made in the light of the first aspect.
i. There is need for a large-scale cross-cultural inter-disciplinary
and multi-dimensional study of the status and dynamics of
household food security in Nigeria by a research team
comprising social scientists (especially sociologists,
demographers, economists, geographers) and agricultural
scientists. Such research team should look into developing
measurable indicators of household food security that will
accommodate the different facets of the concept.
ii. Variable-specific studies should be conducted to assess food
security differentials of female-headed, jointly-headed and
male-headed households. Such studies should also pay
attention to comparative analyses of rural-urban, and income
group differentials.
iii. The present research has argued on the relevance of the
human rights perspective, arguing that it is underlined by
certain assumptions which could facilitate the development of
propositions. Social theorists are especially urged to develop
and test related axiomatic formats and causal relationships
characterizing the perspective so as to enhance its utility in
sociological research.
iv. Studies should be conducted on urban women co-operatives
and their potentials, or otherwise, in enhancing small-scale
farming activities.
The following recommendations are made to directly impact upon the
enhancement of household food security and general human development.
i. Though we have earlier identified the existence of Urban
Agriculture Strategy, the legal status of urban agriculture in
Nigeria, or in Cross River State, is not clear. Government must
move away from passivity to active involvement in urban
agricultural development by providing enabling political,
economic and social environment through legislation and
infrastructual provisioning for women to be resourcefully
engaged in farming activities in the urban area. Components of
this strategy involves provision of land, farm inputs, extension
service (especially through women) and credit facilities
specifically targeted at the urban small-scale farmer.
ii. Government and civil society groups should encourage the
women, through enlightenment and resources, to organize
themselves into viable co-operatives. These co-operatives
which would reflect their homogeneity as small-scale vegetable
farmers, will give them more power in articulating their needs.
iii. Government, through its agencies or in conjunction with
NGOs/CBOs, should design and implement a programme of
transferring appropriate numeracy and literacy skills to the
small-scale farmers such that they could manage their
enterprises better.
iv. There is no agricultural research institute that is presently
studying the local leafy vegetables as part of its area of interest,
yet these food crops have important food security value. It is
recommended that existing research institutes correct this
discrepancy because of the critical role of such research in
environmental management, crop specie, and overall crop
yield.
v. Government should provide funds for universities and relevant
government agencies, such as NISER and FOS to carry out
periodic study on the status of household food security, its
dimensions and differentials and development planning should
be based on the findings of such studies.
5.3: CONCLUSION
Food security is a basic human right and its achievement must not be
thrust on the women alone as though it were their biological duty. Food
insecurity denigrates the human person. President Olusegun Obasanjo, in
his national broadcast on the occasion of 2000 World Food Day, noted that
“a nation that cannot feed itself will be enslaved (. . . ) The benefit of all
other policy items are judged by whether or not they contribute to our
efforts to adequately and sustainably feed ourselves” (The Post Express,
October 19,2000).
As a basic human right, achieving food security calls for
multidimensional policies at primary, secondary and tertiary levels of
political, economic, legal, social and cultural interaction. While the need for
a long–term solution that transcends agricultural and economic
development cannot be over-emphasized, the need to activate short-term
intervention strategies such that women who strive for food security under
too often underprivileged conditions are empowered and their existential
fulfillment enhance must be a priority. The many responsibilities and
burden women bear in the food system of our society - by playing not only
the roles of mother and housewives but also those of farmers, labourers
and traders – require that the status of women be raised and their
education improved. This is the one dependable achievement that will
positively ensure food security not only in the short-term but also in the
long-term.
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APPENDIX “A”
INTERVIEW SCHEDULE
INTRODUCTION This interview schedule is designed for an empirical study on “Woman and food security: A study of vegetable farming in Calabar Metropolis” The purpose of the study is primarily to obtain information on the subject for academic purpose and ultimately provide grounds for government policy and intervention in women’s participation in agricultural production and food security in urban areas. Please tick (a) appropriate (or most suitable) options(s) and fill in the qualitative responses where necessary. The responses are to be treated as strictly confidential. Thanks. 1. Age Group: 1. 15-20 ( ) 2. 21-25 ( ) 3. 26 –30 ( ) 4 31 –35 ( ) 5. 36 –40 ( ) 6. 41- 45 ( ) 7. 46 –50 ( ) 8. 51 and above ( ) 2. Marital 1. Single ( ) 2. Married ( ) 3. Divorced/ 4. Widowed ( )
Separated ( )
3. Ethnic Origin 1. Efik ( ) 2. Ejagham ( ) 3. Ibibio ( ) 4. Annang ( ) 5. Igbo ( ) 6. Any other (specify) ( ) 1. Level of education (highest) education attainment
1. Primary School Incomplete ( ) 2. Primary School Completed ( ) 3. Secondary School Incomplete ( ) 4. Secondary School Completed ( ) 5. Tertiary Education Incomplete ( )
6. Tertiary Education completed (specify qualification)
2. Husband’s Occupation
1. Farmer ( ) 2. Trader ( )
3. Civil Servant ( ) 4. Business ( )
5 Any other(specify)
3. What other occupation do you have besides farming
1. Trading ( ) 2. Civil Servant ( )
3. None ( ) 4. Any other ( specify) ( )
4. What amount of income do you obtain from the sale of your farm produce per day/week? …………………………
FOOD PRODUCTION
5. What are the specific vegetables you cultivate
(Tick as many as applicable)
1. Water leaf (Mmo-mon-ikon) ( )
2. Fluted pumpkin (ikon ubon) ( )
3. Spinach ( inyan afia) ( )
4. Hot leaf ( etinkeni) ( )
5. Scent leaf (nton) ( )
6. any other (specify)……………………………………..
6. How long have you been farming in Calabar
1. Under a year ( ) 2. 1- 2 years ( )
3. 3 – 4 years ( ) 4. 5– 6 years ( )
5. 7 –8 years ( ) 6. 9 – 10 years ( )
7. More than 10 years ( )
7. As a farmer, how much time do you devote to farm work per day?
1. 1- 2 hours ( ) 2. 3 – 4 hours
3. 5- 6 hours ( ) 4. 7 – 8 hours
5. More that 8 hours
8. How did you obtain the land you are cultivating?
1. Given by my family ( )
2. Given by a friend ( )
3. Given by a relative ( )
4. Bought from somebody ( )
5. Shared cropping ( )
6. Any other (Specify) ( )
1. How many plots are you presently cultivating?
1. 1 – 3 plots ( ) 2. 4 –6 plots ( )
3. 7 – 9 plots ( ) 4. 10 –12 plots ( )
5. 13 –15 plots ( ) 6. 16 18 plots ( )
7. 19 –21 plots ( ) 8. 22 plots and above ( )
2. What sources of farm labour do you usually employ:
(tick as many as applicable )
1. Mine ( ) 2. My children ( )
3. Friends ( ) 4. Mired labour ( )
5. Husband ( ) 6. Any other (specify
3. Do you prefer farming to formal sector employment?
1. Prefer farming ( )
2. Prefer formal sector employment ( )
4. What is the distance between your home and the farm
1. less than 1 Kilometer ( )
2. 1 –3 Kilometers ( )
3. 4 –6 Kilometers ( )
4. 7 – 9 Kilometers ( )
5. 10 –12 kilometers ( )
6. Above 12 Kilometers ( )
(probe on means of transporting self and produce)
5. What problems do you encounter in your farm work?
1. Lack of suitable land to increase production ( )
2. Small –size farm plots ( )
3. Inefficient tools/implements ( )
4. High incidence of pests, weeds and disease ( )
5. Lack of adequate input (fertilizer, high – yielding crop varieties, chemicals, manure) ( )
6. Shortage of labour ( )
7. Lack of access to credit ( )
8. Any other (specify ) …………………………
9. Do you have access to any agricultural extension services of any sort?
1. Yes ( ) No ( )
HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY
10. How much of your farm produce is consumed at home per day/week………………………………………………
11. How often does the family feed in a day?
1. Once ( ) 2. Twice ( )
3. Thrice ( ) Four times ( )
5. Any other (specify)……………………………………..
12. How often does the family consume vegetables as part of its meals?
1. Daily ( ) 2. Twice a day ( )
3. Weekly ( ) 4. As often as need ( )
13. Are you receiving enough help from husband in providing food for the family?
14. Receiving enough help ( )
15. Not receiving enough help ( )
(probe on nature of help)
1. What is the primary source of food for your family?
1. By purchasing ( ) 2. By barter ( )
3. By own production ( ) 4 By gifts ( )
5. Any other (specify)………………………………
B. How viable is the sources?
1. Very viable
2. Averagely viable
3. Not viable
(probe on reasons underlying response,)
1. Who takes primary responsibility of providing the money for the following needs – food, health education of children.
MAN WOMAN
FOOD
HEALTH
EDUCATION
