But they play these roles in the face of enormous social, cultural, and economic constraints. The sustainable production of food is the first pillar of food security. They achieve this despite unequal access to land, to inputs such as improved seeds and fertilizer, and to information. Given equal access to resources and human capital, women farmers can achieve yields equal to or even, as some studies show, significantly higher than those of men. Laws governing women's rights to land vary widely.
Some religious laws forbid female ownership of land.
Even when civil law gives women the right to inherit land, local custom may rule otherwise. In sub-Saharan Africa, where women have prime responsibility for food production, they are generally limited to user rights to land, and then only with the consent of a male relative. Some resettlement and irrigation projects have actually eroded women's rights to land by providing formal titles only to men. This insecurity of tenure reduces the likelihood that women will invest much time or many resources in usufruct land or adopt environmentally sustainable farming practices. The weakness of women's land rights results in an inability to use land as collateral to obtain access to credit.