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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 8, No. 8
Publication Date: August 25, 2021
DOI:10.14738/assrj.88.10681. Ayodeji, A. O., Rauf, A. J., & Lobley, M. (2021). Effect of Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture on Rural Households Food
Security: A Case Study of Oyo State, Nigeria. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(8). 600-615.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Effect of Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture on Rural
Households Food Security: A Case Study of Oyo State, Nigeria
Abiola Oyeboade Ayodeji
University of Exeter, United Kingdom
Department of Agricultural Administration
Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, Nigeria
Ayodeji J. Rauf
National Agricultural Seed Council
Matt Lobley
University of Exeter, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
Empowering women in agriculture is considered a prerequisite to achieving global
food security. However, there exists a research gap due to limited empirical studies
to ascertain this, especially in nations like Nigeria where high level of food
insecurity and gender inequality is perceived. Therefore, this study examines the
effect women’s empowerment in agriculture has on household food security. The
study was carried out in Oyo State, Nigeria and a sample size of 100 rural women
was drawn using the multi-stage sampling technique. Data was collected using a
semi-structured questionnaire through an interview schedule. Data analysed was
done using descriptive statistics, abbreviated women’s empowerment index, food
security index and logistic regression model. Findings from this study revealed that
more than half (58%) of the women were disempowered and about 59% of the
households were food insecure. By disintegrating women’s empowerment into its
various domains, this study identified that the major contributors to
disempowerment are time(workload), production and resource domain. The
logistic regression result shows that women’s empowerment in agriculture
positively influences household food security. The study recommends that women
must be adequately empowered in order mitigate food insecurity. Finally, the study
suggests further research should be carried out to determine the gender parity in
agriculture to understand the women’s empowerment in comparison with men’s
empowerment in individual households.
Keywords: Women’s empowerment; agriculture; food security; rural household
INTRODUCTION
Achieving food security is one of the major goals of our world today, and many efforts have been
channelled towards attaining this. In fact, many development organisations such as FAO1 and
USAID2 have “ending hunger and malnutrition” as their core goals. This is because food is a
1 Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations
2 United States Agency for International Development
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Ayodeji, A. O., Rauf, A. J., & Lobley, M. (2021). Effect of Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture on Rural Households Food Security: A Case Study of
Oyo State, Nigeria. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(8). 600-615.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.88.10681
basic necessity for a healthy and productive life. Also, they see achieving global food security as
an end goal and a means to an end. That is, attaining food security will help to accomplish other
development indicators such as good health and wellbeing, economic growth, and poverty
reduction (FAO, 2018). Food security is said to exist when every individual at all time have
access to enough, safe and nutritive diet required to meet their food preferences and dietary
need for a healthy and active life (Pinstrup-Andersen, 2009). The problem of food security is
complicated with issues such as volatility of food prices, the adverse effect of climate change on
food production, conversion of food crops to biofuels in the major food-exporting nations, and
the negligence of agriculture in terms of investment in infrastructure (Agarwal, 2012). All these
challenges have stirred up renewed global interest in agriculture as a means of reducing the
barriers to food security and improve economic growth (Agarwal, 2012). Hence, the growing
realization of the need to boost the productivity of smallholder farmers, the majority of whom
are women in order to mitigate food insecurity (FAO, 2011).
Like in most developing nations, women make up about 50 percent of the total agricultural
labour force in Nigeria (FAO, 2011)
And they contribute tremendously to food production. However, empirical evidences show that
women farmers in Nigeria lag behind men with regards to agricultural productivity, chiefly due
to gender inequality in respect of access to, control over and utilisation of productive resources
such as land, livestock, financial services, technology, education and extension services (Diiro
et al., 2018; FAO, 2011; Rahman, 2008). The inequality in access to land is particularly severe
in Nigeria, due to cultural norms and traditions that restrict women from inheriting land
(Akanle & Ewajesu, 2017).This limited land ownership by female farmers hinders them from
accessing formal credit because land is a major form of collateral (Amanda et al., 2006). Other
gender inequalities evident in Nigeria's agricultural sector include limited access to labour and
agricultural markets (Doss et al., 2011; FAO, 2011; Rahji & Falusi, 2005) and less control over
the use of revenue from agricultural production (Gates, 2014). All these challenges limits
women farmers’ productivity level. Despite these constraints women still play important roles
at every stage of the food system; as food producers (farmers), consumers, stabilisers of food
access, and caretakers of household food and nutrition security (Quisumbing et al., 1995;
Rahman, 2008). Also, women are believed to invest about 10 times more than men do in their
families' wellbeing, especially in areas like children’s healthcare, education, and nutrition
(Duflo, 2012; Maertens & Verhofstadt, 2013; Quisumbing & Maluccio, 2000). This
fundamentally suggests that empowering women, that is, enabling them to make strategic life
choices in areas where this ability has been previously denied can have a direct impact on both
their agricultural productivity and household food security (Harper et al., 2013; Sraboni et al.,
2014). However, there are few empirical studies to ascertain this. Hence, this study was carried
out to ascertain the impact empowerment of women in agriculture have on rural household
food security using Oyo State, Nigeria as a case study.
MEASURING WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN AGRICULTURE
According to Kabeer (1999), empowerment is the ability to make strategic life choices in areas
where the ability has been previously denied. Alsop et al.,(2006) describe empowerment as the
process of improving individual's or group's capacity to make deliberate decisions and
transform those decisions into desired actions and outcomes. From these two definitions, it can
be inferred that empowerment is mainly about expansion of freedom to make strategic choices
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 8, Issue 8, August-2021
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and actions that shape one's life. However, women’s empowerment is subjective to individual
personality, aspirations, culture, and experiences (Alkire et al., 2013). Therefore, it is important
to note that the definition of women’s empowerment can be limited if focused on just
individual choices, especially in a cultural context where community and mutuality are valued
(Alkire et al., 2013). Hence, development and government agencies working towards
empowering women must acknowledge the complexity of empowering women and put their
societal institutions into consideration.
Different measures have been used to estimate women's empowerment generally in the past
but there was no specific instrument to measure women’s empowerment in agriculture until
2012 when a survey-based Women Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) was developed
by IFPRI 3 in conjunction with United State government’s Feed the Future programme to
facilitate the monitoring, evaluation, and diagnoses of women’s empowerment, agency, and
inclusion in the agricultural sector (Alkire et al., 2013). The WEAI comprises of five domains of
empowerment; production, resources, income, leadership and time, and ten indicators are used
in measuring them (Alkire et al., 2013). However, after the first set of field survey there was a
review of the first WEAI and a shorter, streamlined version known as A-WEAI4 was coined out.
The A- WEAI retains the five domains of empowerment, but the ten indicators were reduced to
six indicators. In using the A-WEAI there are stated aggregation method, inadequacy cut-offs,
and weight attached to each of the five domains and their indicators (Table I).
Table I: The domains, indicators, inadequacy cut-offs, and weights in the A-WEAI
Dimension Indicator
Name
Inadequacy cut-off Weight
Production Input in
productive
decisons
Inadequate if individual participates but does not
have at least some input in decisions or she does not
make the decisions nor feels she could
1/5
Resources Ownership of
assets
Access to and
decisions on
credit
Inadequate if household does not own any asset or if
household owns the type of asset but she/he does not
own most of it alone
Inadequate if household has no credit or used a
source of credit but she/he did not participate in any
decisions about it
2/15
1/15
Income Control over
use of income
Inadequate if a person participates in activity but has
little or no input in decisions about income generated
or does not feel she/she can make decisions regarding
wage, employment and major household expenditure
1/5
Leadership Group
membership
Inadequate if a person is not part of at least one group
or if no group reported in the community
1/5
Time Workload Inadequate if a person works more 10.5 hours per
day
1/5
Source: Malapit et al., (2015)
3 International Food Policy Research Institute 4 Abbreviated Women’s Empowermentin Agriculture Index