Contextualizing poverty alleviation and gender practice in food security in Africa

Abstract

From Africa perspective, women are inferior and less powerful when compared to their male counterparts. Hence, their role should naturally be of a domestic calling. In addition to being relegated to the background of domestic affairs, most women function as food producers, at least, at the subsistence level. These dual roles are mostly unpaid, under-valued, and therefore hardly accounted for in monetary terms. Rather than being beneficiaries of development having also contributed to it, women not only lack access to relevant inputs to be productive in agriculture, but also actually become major victims of associated untoward fallouts of developmental processes. Climate change-induced stresses and ecological damage resulting from mineral extraction in most African states exacerbate the burdens of women's role in agriculture. Thus, anchored on feminism; with specific focus on liberal feminism, this paper investigates the agricultural role of women in Africa and the practices undermining it. To guarantee region-wide food security, it recommends a more agriculturally gendered continent.