From observation it was clear that cash crop farms occupied most of the fertile land leaving the women with small holdings for food farming. On each farm allocated by head of the clan, land use organization is based on the supremacy of the man. On the plot allocated by head of the clan, land use organisation is based on the supremacy of the man. On the plot allocated the family cultivates for two reasons; home consumption and cash.
There was an apparent distinction between "women's crops" (mostly food crops) and "men's crops" (mainly cash crops). The "women's crops" are: Sorghum, millet; arrow roots, cassava, sweet and English potatoes, vegetables, maize and beans. The "men's crops" are: coffee and occasionally maize and beans.
It was observed during the study that women are the primary land resource managers given their role in food production. Mumbuni Location has unreliable rainfall and since crop production depends on rainfall, women realize that crop failure would adversely affect them and their families. At the same time erosion is a major hazard in the area. For this reason, women were found to combine highly diversified and risk spreading sets of management strategies. For example, complex land use combinations were employed in both upland (often shifting) cultivation and valley bottom flood retreating cultivation. Other conservation measures taken are: heaping, ridging, terracing and mulching, and intercropping. A diversity of crops are also grown at different times of the year to ensure food availability throughout the year.
To determine who uses which tools, on the farms, the women were found to use mainly jembes, pangas and hoes. The men used ploughs, tractors, handcrafts and wheelbarrow. This is true of what has been observed:
The predicted consequences of these factors is that productivity gap between men and women in agriculture could increase as women will remain in the subsistence sector using traditional technologies while men become increasingly involved in commercial production with modern technology (INSTRAW 1984 p.14).
It is true that the men have an advantage in terms of acquiring tools over women, since most modern farm tools like ploughs, tractors and wheelbarrows etc. are very expensive. Most men can afford them if they wish to because they have credit facilities. Most women, as we will see later, have no access to credit facilities and therefore can only afford cheap farm tools.
Our conclusion is that, despite the crucial role that women play in food production in this area, agricultural technological improvements have eluded them, leading to negative consequences for food production, the perpetuation of their poverty and persistence of serious labour bottlenecks. Thus lack of improved production tools for women has indeed led to most profound negative effects upon their ability to maintain their responsibilities as food producers.
