Traditionally, in most ACP States and elsewhere, it is men who have access to land, technology and credit at the levels required for profitable cash crop and livestock production. If no deliberate attempts are made to protect and promote women's rights in agriculture, the danger of commercialisation strategies is that subsistence farming will suffer. Tracy Doig, of the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, argues that women may still be expected to perform their traditional agricultural role, as well as take on the extra burden of looking after their husband's cash crops. He explains that, in Uganda, laws about land ownership are gender blind, and that nowhere in the constitution does it say that women cannot own land. If it's not appropriate to women As well as a need for land, there is a need for technology.
Credit is crucial for land and equipment purchase.
The local and regional demand for items such as canned and bottled traditional sauces is fuelling a small industrial revolution. Yet early attempts by women's cooperatives to build up businesses around this trend were thwarted by lack of access to credit. The reluctance of most banks to invest in women's enterprises, which have little or no collateral, reflects that seen in the field. An alternative to credit that is now being developed in several women's agricultural and small enterprise programmes is 'income-smoothing'. Furthermore, it is probable that the solidarity of a women's group based on savings is greater than that based on debt.