Women may be doing most of the work in agriculture, but men continue to take control of the income generated from farm produce, an agriculture development organisation has warned.
Kenneth Massa, programmes manager at Horizont3000, said the imbalance was undermining the economic empowerment of women, who constitute a major part of Uganda’s agricultural workforce.
Massa, who represented Solomon Mbubi, the regional director for East Africa at Horizont3000, said women should be given greater control over the economic benefits of their agricultural work.
“We are also calling upon all the stakeholders to ensure gender equality in the farming or agriculture sector. Studies show that women, while they are the major producers in the agricultural sector, when it comes to the economic security of farming that we get in the market, again, the men take over,” Massa said.
He said men often take control of proceeds after harvest, a situation that can fuel domestic conflicts and gender-based violence.
“Women, who are the major producers in the agriculture sector, are also given the front seat. So, to us, the farm and development sector, we are looking at the women more in contrast, because of the big role that they play,” he said.
Massa said Horizont3000 is preparing to commit additional resources to farmer-led innovation under its next four-year framework, running from 2027 to 2030.
He said the organisation has already secured €1.2 million (about Shs4.8 billion) through the Australian Development Agency to support farmers and expand the Enabling Rural Innovation approach.
The programme focuses on practical innovations developed with farmers, including improved production methods, post-harvest handling, pest monitoring, market research and gender inclusion.
Massa cited the use of tarpaulins during post-harvest handling as one of the simple interventions that can help farmers reduce losses.
He said farmers are also being trained to identify pests affecting their crops and report them to extension workers.
“These are simple innovations.The interventions were helping farmers obtain better value from their produce and improve household food security,”,” Massa said.
Tackling gender-based violence
Massa said gender equality is a cross-cutting component of the programme, with farmers being trained on how to involve men in agriculture and reduce conflicts over farm income.
He said women often produce crops and other agricultural products but lose control of the money once the produce reaches the market.
“When the farmers harvest, who are women, after harvesting, when it comes to the market, the men take over. They want to get the money. And what comes next is gender-based violence, fighting over the money from the produce,” he said.
He said the programme therefore invests in training and approaches aimed at reducing gender-based violence and promoting peaceful households.
Farmers take lead in innovation
Sharon Namboza, the Enabling Rural Innovation coordinator for East Africa, said the programme is increasingly relying on farmers themselves to identify problems and develop solutions.
She said farmers are involved in testing agricultural inputs, including seeds, while experts and universities help document and assess their innovations.
“For us, what we do is we now get the experts in that area to now come and document, and also to capacity-build this farmer in that area. So ERI is really based on farmer’s interests and farmer’s needs,” Namboza said.
The approach is also being used to tackle counterfeit agricultural inputs.The organisation is holding policy dialogues from village and parish level to sub-county and district level, with the discussions sometimes resulting in district ordinances.
The meetings bring together farmers, agricultural input dealers and policymakers to identify where problems in the supply of agricultural inputs arise.
She said farmers are particularly important in the process because they bear the consequences when poor-quality inputs result in low yields.
Opening regional markets
Namboza said farmers also need to meet certification and quality requirements if they are to sell their products beyond their local communities.
The programme works with certification and standards bodies and supports farmers through training before their products are assessed.
The organisation also encourages farmers to conduct their own market research instead of depending on development organisations to find buyers for them.
She explained that farmers are facilitated to visit potential markets, including outside Uganda, identify buyers and establish contacts that they can continue using after development programmes end.
“If they want to do market research in Kenya, we facilitate them, they go to Kenya, they do the market research, they come back with the buyer’s contacts, the buyer’s locations, and at the end of the day, the farmers are doing most of the things on their own,” she said.
Under the next four-year framework, the programme expects to reach 5,940 farmers, including about 3,000 farmers carried over from the previous framework and approximately 2,900 new farmers.
Government backs farmer-led innovation
Angela Nanyenya, a principal agriculture extension skills management officer at the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, said farmer-led innovations are important across the entire agricultural value chain.
She said farmers are developing innovations not only in production but also in processing, value addition, branding and collective marketing.
“Through these innovations, farmers are able to improve, one, their productivity, two, improve yields, again, which is contributing to productivity, add value to their products, process, and also find market for their products,” Nanyenya said.
She said the innovations ultimately contribute to improved household incomes and food security.
Nanyenya also highlighted the growing role of digital technology in agriculture, saying farmers can use digital platforms to access information on weather and markets while also providing feedback to researchers, extension workers and policymakers.
She said digital feedback can be as simple as WhatsApp messages or can involve farmers sending audio recordings and pictures of challenges encountered in the field.
Such information, she said, can inform agricultural policy, research and the development of technologies that respond to farmers’ needs.
The Ministry, she added, works with development partners through the government’s extension system, with district production offices helping identify areas where additional agricultural services are required and monitoring activities implemented by partners.
