
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Agriculture, Diversification, And Gender In Rural Africa uses a longitudinal cross-country comparative approach to contribute to the understanding of smallholder agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa. Relying on unique household level data collected in six African countries since 2002, it addresses the dynamics of intensification and diversification within and outside agriculture in contexts where women have much poorer access to agrarian resources than men. Despite a growing interest in smallholder agriculture in Africa, this interest has not been matched by the research on the subject. While recent policies focus on reducing poverty through encouraging smallholder agriculture, there are few studies showing how livelihoods have changed since this time, and especially how such changes may have affected male and female headed households differently. Moreover, agriculture is often viewed in isolation from other types of income generating opportunities, like small scale trading. Agriculture, Diversification, And Gender In Rural Africa looks at how livelihoods have changed over time and how this has affected the relationship between agricultural and non-agricultural sources of livelihoods. In general, women have much poorer access to agricultural sources of income, and for this reason the interplay between farm and non-farm sources of income is especially important to analyse. Providing suggestions for more inclusive policies related to rural development, this edited volume outlines current weaknesses and illustrates potential opportunities for change. It offers a nuanced alternative to the current dominance of structural transformation narratives of agricultural change through adding insights from gender studies as well as village-level studies of ag
This volume investigates how smallholder agricultural intensification and income diversification have evolved in Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically examining the gendered disparities in resource access and livelihood outcomes. The authors, a team of development economists and researchers, utilize longitudinal household-level data from six African nations to challenge prevailing structural transformation narratives. By integrating gender analysis with village-level economic data, the text argues that current agricultural policies often overlook the distinct constraints faced by female-headed households in balancing farm and non-farm income streams.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Experts in development economics recognize this work as a significant contribution to the empirical understanding of rural livelihoods in Africa. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the rigor of the longitudinal methodology employed by the contributors.
Page Count:
272
Publication Date:
2018-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0192519956
ISBN-13:
9780192519955
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