Female access to fertile land and other inputs in Zambia: why women get lower yields

Throughout the developing world, it is a well-documented fact that women farmers tend to get lower yields than their male counterparts. Typically this is attributed to disproportionate access to high-quality inputs and labor, with some even arguing there could be a skills-gap stemming from unbalance...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Agriculture and human values 2018-12, Vol.35 (4), p.761-775
Main Authors: Burke, William J., Li, Serena, Banda, Dingiswayo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access control
Agricultural Economics
Agricultural policy
Agricultural production
Developing countries
Education
Ethics
Evolutionary Biology
Farmers
Gender differences
History
Land
LDCs
Patriarchy
Philosophy
Soil analysis
Soil characteristics
Soil fertility
Soil quality
Stability
Training
Veterinary Medicine/Veterinary Science
Women
Women owned businesses
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Summary:Throughout the developing world, it is a well-documented fact that women farmers tend to get lower yields than their male counterparts. Typically this is attributed to disproportionate access to high-quality inputs and labor, with some even arguing there could be a skills-gap stemming from unbalanced access to training and education. This article examines the gender-based yield gap in the context of Zambian maize producers. In addition to the usual drivers, we argue that Zambia’s patriarchal and multi-tiered land distribution system could disfavor women with respect to accessing quality soils. We are uniquely able to control for soil characteristics using farm data from a sample of 1573 fields with accompanying soil analysis. We find an expected difference in yields, but no evidence of a gap in unobserved characteristics, like skill, after controlling for access to inputs, especially quality soil, suggesting women are indeed disproportionately disadvantaged. We discuss how our findings could be used to develop self-targeting policy interventions that could empower women and would be consistent with the government’s stated equity goals.
ISSN:0889-048X
1572-8366
DOI:10.1007/s10460-018-9872-6