Are international agriculture projects empowering rural female farmers in sub-Saharan Africa? A case study of North Central Nigeria

Surma, Ngukwase (2023) Are international agriculture projects empowering rural female farmers in sub-Saharan Africa? A case study of North Central Nigeria. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

This thesis examines women’s empowerment within the context of agriculture exploring whether international agriculture projects are empowering rural female farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. The thesis investigates if producer organisations, a common approach to reaching rural small-scale farmers in Nigeria, are instrumental in empowering rural female farmers.

Focusing on four producer organisations(all female and mixed) of the USAID Maximising Agricultural Revenue and Key Enterprises in Targets Sites II (MARKETS II(MII) project in Benue State, North Central Nigeria, the research explores four conceptual pathways of empowerment and five mediating factors. Employing in-depth interviews(39), focus group discussions(12), ethnographic records, and relevant literature, the research explored whether membership in the producer organisations enabled the female farmers to develop the type of power, to negotiate new conjugal and gender contracts in their households and communities. The concepts of conjugal and gender contracts, gender roles and identities, power, and empowerment were used to examine women’s actions or inactions in their households and communities. The research also explored the impact of the incessant herder-farmer conflict in the study site on masculinities and the negotiations of new gender contracts.

Employing a broad definition of women’s empowerment, I conclude that agriculture projects are not empowering rural female farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. This is because of the failure of producer organisations to transform into spaces for the nurturing of the generative and productive power of rural female farmers to exercise agency to change unequal gender and power relations. Although the MII intervention had all the elements of the pathways of empowerment, it failed to apply a feminist perspective to the design and implementation of its project. This meant that the producer organisations could not become transformative spaces. Furthermore, the organisations did not thrive during the project and ceased to exist immediately after MARKETS II ended. The reasons for their collapse include among others the nature of their establishment, the inability to develop a member-driven agenda, and the lack of committed members.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Global Development (formerly School of International Development)
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	15 Feb 2024 11:10
Last Modified:	15 Feb 2024 11:10
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/94361
DOI:

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