Farming as a Family Business Training Manual

In many African countries, women are relegated to the periphery of the decision-making ladder on important issues such as access to land and other productive resources. This traditional legacy resulted in an unequal structure of society and unequal distribution of resources. In Zimbabwe, traditional ideas on gender roles deny women full participation in decision making and social and economic development. As a result, women have far less access than men to land ownership, financial services, training, and other means of increasing agricultural production and improving family income. Furthermore, women and children receive little of the income from sales of produce in spite of doing most of the work in agriculture. Clearly, there are social and moral reasons for seeking to redress these disparities. Therefore, the key focus of the Farming as a Family Business manual is to integrate men, women, and children into the decision-making and management functions of farm businesses. The manual recognises the importance of women in the food and environmental nexus through their various roles in household reproduction, as primary managers of the natural resource base, and as farmers responsible for a substantial share of food crop production.

Publication Details

• Published: 2012
• Publisher: USAID