METODOLOGÍA DE ESTUDIO DE LOS HALLAZGOS POR SU FECHA DE EMISIÓN

The gender theory aims to introduce gender sensitivity to the study in terms of the roles and status of men at the community level and the power relations in households. Because men and women play different but complementary roles towards household food security, the gender theory provided a framework for the analysis of the gender division of labour in the study villages to discern men’s and women’s contribution to household food security during the jatropha project. This helped to provide an answer to the research question about the effects of the project on household food security.

Gender refers to the social and cultural understanding of what it means to be a woman or a man (Moore 1988). Certain roles or expectations are attached to every men and women in every society. Appropriate or acceptable behavior of men and women is called gender ideology (McDowell, 1999). Because a particular behavior is attached gender, men and women relate to each other in a particular way. The relationship between men and women is called gender relations (Moore 1988). In the gender relations, there is asymmetry of power to the disadvantage of women as they are regarded as subordinates to men (ibid.: 2). These gender concepts bring forth the differences between men and women which are socially constructed and hence, their different roles and statuses both in society and within households. The relevance of the gender concepts is evident in how they serve as a basic structure in society that defines the division of duties and rights, work tasks, power, honour, time, money, care and property, inheritance both within households and the societal levels.

In the study areas, household organization, livelihoods as well as contributions to household welfare are gendered. Within the households are hierarchies based on gender with men at the apex and women as subordinates. For instance, men are household heads in the three villages. Women only become household heads when men travel outside home. The gender ideologies in the households define livelihoods and household tasks. In terms of farming, because of the difficulty of the of farm work, males are predominantly farmers with women playing only assisting role in the farm work by cooking for labors, sowing seeds as well as harvesting the farm produce. Although, there is undifferentiated access to land for farming along gender lines, however, family farms are owned by men who are usually husbands or the male elderly

persons. In effect, farm proceeds are controlled by men, although the entire household members are entitled to it. Some women sometimes interplant vegetables such pepper, okro and onion either in their husbands’ farms or family farms or in their own farms, nonetheless, it is only a handful of them with usually smaller farm sizes in the form of backyard farms. Farm produce is thus, men’s major contribution to farm household provisioning.

As said earlier, women on the other hand, are engaged in trading. Women in the three villages are actively engaged in charcoal, firewood, shea nut and petty trading businesses. Shea nut business women either collect the nuts and sell them in their fresh state or process them into shea butter either as pomade for sale or as cooking oil. As a result of the gender division of labour in the study areas explained above, gender defines economic status in different times of the year. Because farms produce are mainly meant for domestic consumption, livelihoods of women are the main income sources for households. Moreover, because of their economic undertakings, women have relatively regular incomes throughout the year whilst because farming is limited to only rainy seasons, men who are predominantly farmers become financially vulnerable during the long dry seasons. Although, men sell part of their farm produce or offer their labour service in the nearby towns and use the income to purchase food for the household, however, because food preparation is the traditional task of females in the households, a large part of the incomes of women are spent on cooking food in the households. Thus, women play an active role in household welfare in general and food securities in particular especially in the dry season when most men become idle (unemployed).

During the jatropha project, both men and women in the active working age (between 20 and 50 years) were employed in the plantations. Nonetheless, due to the aforementioned pre- existing gender ideologies in the study areas, men and women benefited from the project differently and thus, contributed differently to household food security. Women for instance, were employed to do jobs like planting of jatropha seedlings, harvesting and removing the jatropha nuts which are in accordance with their routine livelihood of shea nut collection. Female plantation workers and other female residents were allowed to intercrop in the rows as well as on the edges of the plantation which was a much easier way of farming. Male residents on the other hand, were mainly employed for tasks as security personnel fire

volunteers as well as weeding in the plantation. Most men hired the services of the company’s tractors for ploughing of land areas for farming. Both men and women employed in the plantation mainly worked as fieldworkers earning almost the same wages. However, the marked difference in terms of the spin-off effects of the project for men and women is the petty trading activities that accompanied the establishment of the plantation. Because of the gender ideology of trading associated with females, women invested in petty trading activities. The petty trading of women took the form of food and groceries sales to the workers in the plantation as well as in their communities. The gender theory provided a framework to analyze the consequences of the jatropha project on the livelihoods of women and men and their contribution to household food security.