This paper represents the second instalment in the series of Occasional Papers which the Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern Africa(OSSREA) is launching.
For a number of years now the Organization has been running research competitions on both general social science themes and gender issues. Winners of these competitions are required to present their research findings in the form of final reports. These reports, because they tend to be bulky, do not lend themselves to easy and wide circulation. However, since some of them are of good enough quality to deserve wider readership, it was felt that an opportunity should be given to the authors to condense their reports to a size appropriate for occasional papers. This is how the present paper originated. Its author was a winner of the First OSSREA Research Competition on Gender Issues.
However, we do not intend the research competitions to be our only source of occasional papers. We would therefore like to appeal to all social scientists in the region and those elsewhere doing research on it to contribute to the series. OSSREA undertakes to ensure as wide a circulation of the papers as possible.
Eshetu Chole
Executive Secretary
To be able to assess the constraints women face as food producers, this study set out to:
- analyse women's productive activities within the farms;
- identify factors which influence productivity in the farms, for example, access and control of productive resources, land, labour, credit, information, training and benefits;
- assess the multiple roles of women within the households and labour constraints they face;
- assess the decision-making powers in order to demonstrate the extent of participation and influence in farm production.
To focus the study, Mumbuni Location, in Machakos District, Eastern Kenya was selected for three reasons. First, despite the semi-arid conditions of the area, the majority of the population, most of them women are cultivators and depend on their livelihood on land.
Secondly, the potentially arable land competes for both cash crops e.g coffee and food crops. This has led to intensification of agriculture in the area. Third, land adjudication and registrations is in process while at the same time customary land tenure is still being practiced. All these provided significant combination for this type of study.
The Location Mumbuni has recently (1988) been divided from Iveti South Location. According to the Kenyan Population Census in 1979, the total population of Iveti south Location was 20,503 with 2,654 households. The sex composition showed that there were 9,695 males and 10,810 females giving a density of 391. According to Kenya Central Bureau of Statistics, the total agricultural land available in Iveti is 83,000 ha. giving each household and average land size of 2.97 and 0.43 per person (Jaetzold and Schmidt 1983).
Rainfall in the whole Machakos district is normally concentrated in two short seasons: end of March to May and end of October to December. Rainfall figures from various stations give annual rainfall average of 665mm. The mean maximum temperature is 24.70o centigrade.
The survey was carried out on a sample of 100 households (about 5% of the number of households in Mumbuni Location). The sample was taken from 6 sub-locations of Mumbuni: Misakwani, Kiandani, Mtutuni, Kathekakai, Mungala and Kasinga. Kiandani and Kasinga which have relatively-higher population as compared to other sub-locations were given a higher share of the sample.
However, the definition of the household in the Kenya population Census (1979) does not fully coincide with that adopted in this study. The household as a key concept in this study meant a family unit making provision for their own food without combining with other persons. for example in polygamous homes, each wife and her children were treated as a household. The actual inclusion of the household was thus further determined by random sampling on the field.
