1. Sociocultural Factors Affecting Women Empowerment in Rice Farming Communities; Qualitative Evidence from Northern Ghana  
Dr. Stephen Afranie and Samuel Dakey, Centre for Social Policy Studies (CPSS), University of Ghana Legon

2. Why women in rice farming ?
Women are key actors in farming
Relevance of farming to Ghana’s economy
49% of agricultural labor force in Sub-Sahara Africa are women (ILO,2014)
More than 50% of agricultural labor force in Ghana are women (FAO, 2015)
Over 64% people are employed in the agricultural sector
Agriculture's contribution to Ghana’s GDP was 19.% as at September 2015 (MoFA, 2016)

3. AGRA Ghana baseline study
Project summary
AGRA ISSER partnership
- Baseline study
- Qualitative study (within a mixed method design)
- Focus crops: Maize, Rice, Cassava and Soybean
Implementation areas: Northern and Brong Ahafo Region
Rice growing areas (EAs) in Northern Region
Focus areas: Women empowerment, Household Structure and Activities, Household Income and Food Security, Access and Use of Inputs and Management and Use of Outputs.
Data collection in November 2016

4. Research Design
Multiple case study, unit of analysis were the focus crops; Rice, Maize, Cassava and Soybean
Northern Region: Rice, Maize and Soybean
Sampling technique: Convenient sampling
Scope: Three Enumerations Areas (EAs) Bambuli, Dikpung and Kpakalga
Target: Smallholder farmers, WIAD officers, MoFA officers, AEAs, Agro dealers and Aggregators.
Data collection tools: FGDs, IDIs, and KIIs
Data collection instruments: semi-structured interview guides
Data analysis: Thematic analysis using Nvivo ( version 11)

5. Data management Audio recording of interviews
Verbatim transcription of recorded voice files
Uploading transcripts into NVIVO 11
Women and men crops (word frequency query on node with coded transcripts on responses on most common crops among men and women)
Thematic network (Concept map in NVIVO to show social perceptions of cash and food crops).
Coding query (child nodes on land acquisitions under farming activities and from challenges to women empowerment in agriculture under women empowerment parent node by men and women transcripts)

6. Background Information about respondents

7. Emerging themes
-Gendered crops : Different kinds of crops that are considered by society as being either a man’s crop or a woman’s crop. From our respondents men crops were commercial or cash crops and women crops were mostly food crops. -Socioeconomic understanding of gendered crops: Commercial crops are ascribed to men because the man is expected by culture to be the main financial provider of the household’s the house and women are -Land tenancy: Cultural patriarchy of society places women and their properties including farming plots under the ownership of their husbands.

8. Women crops

9. Men crops

10. Comparing men and women crops
Main purpose of cultivation: men crops target markets, women crops target local consumption
Scale of production; men crops are cultivated on larger plot sizes compared with women crops
Farming activities: Planting starts with the men crops, then later women crops come in .

11. Coping strategies of women farmers
Using male relatives to acquire land (5 -nearly a quarter of respondents),
“…if you go to the elders for land they will give you bad land, the land they will give you, you can not farm, you have to remove a lot of trees, but if your brother gets the land for you it would be good land…” Female rice farmer in a Northern Region FGD
women made their brothers acquire farming plots on their behalf
Tractor services ; negotiations on tractor services were made by significant male others of women farmers
“…the women get the tractors but because you they are women it is better and also cheaper for them to let their husbands do the negotiations some too let their older sons do the bargain for them…” WIAD officer in a Northern Region KII

12. Socioeconomic understanding of gendered crops

13. Land tenancy
Cultural barriers in land acquisition (16 -more than half of respondents)
“…even if you want the land they will ask you to come with your husband, they want to see your husband before they give you land but they don’t ask the man to bring his wife before they give him land…” Female rice farmer in a Northern Region FGD
Cultural barriers to accessing knowledge on input use (9-less than half of the respondents)
“…if you go to the community and you do not go with the WIAD officers to do the education the women farmers would not be allowed to come close to you because you are a man, they do it here, women will not come unless the WIAD lady is there. So it becomes hard to do the education on farming practices for just the women…” An agricultural extension agent in a Northern Region Key Informant Interview

14. Coping strategies of women farmers
Using male relatives to acquire land (5 -nearly a quarter of respondents),
“…if you go to the elders for land they will give you bad land, the land they will give you, you can not farm, you have to remove a lot of trees, but if your brother gets the land for you it would be good land…” Female rice farmer in a Northern Region FGD
women made their brothers acquire farming plots on their behalf
Tractor services ; negotiations on tractor services were made by significant male others of women farmers
“…the women get the tractors but because you they are women it is better and also cheaper for them to let their husbands do the negotiations some too let their older sons do the bargain for them…” WIAD officer in a Northern Region KII

15. Challenges of study
Sampling from quantitative list (no listed women farmers)
Conducting a women focus group discussion with all men interviewers

16. Policy recommendation
Land banks for women farmers
Delivery of women friendly agricultural extension services – women AEAs
Value addition agric. Businesses to economically empower women farmers

17. Thank you

18. References
data.gov.gh retrieved July, 2017