# Water Gender Indicators in Agriculture: A Study of
## Materials and Methods
### Research Context  
Data were collected in the framework of a drip irrigation horticultural project started in 2013 and carried out in three regions of Senegal: Thies, Fatick and Diourbel (Figure 1). According to the latest national households poverty survey, two of them (Thies and Diourbel together with the Dakar region), accounted for almost half (48.6%) of the total population of Senegal and contributed more than 35% to the whole poverty rate of the country [56]. The project was aimed to improve the overall life, food security and production conditions of local small farmer organizations (women, men and mixed organizations) providing them with a more efficient irrigation method for the cultivated plots. The project presented since the beginning a gender sensitive lens since the main intended beneficiaries were women farmers. One component of the project was developed in these central regions of Senegal (part of the so-called _Bassin Arachidier_ and it was primarily focused on the improvement of the local horticultural production, for the final selection of 70 horticultural perimeters (each of them ranging from 5 to 10 hectares for a total of around 400 hectares) among the initial 144. A gender analysis of such horticultural component thus seemed the most interesting since, in Senegal, this sector (generally intended to export operations) mostly involves women even if especially as farm hands [57]. The project intended to apply a \"communal system\" of the cultivated land (in which the implication of farmer organizations is strongly fostered, as already mentioned before), using a common water source to irrigate all the plots of the horticultural perimeter. In practice, the whole perimeter was divided into individual plots, with several management committees (mainly composed of men) entitled to take decisions about the perimeter management. Thies, Diourbel and Fatick are regions next to the capital Dakar, provided with a quite efficient road system. The climate is semi-arid and the agriculture production is limited only to some products as mil (_Panicum Milliacum_ L.), sorghum (_Sorghum vulgare_ L.), bean (_Vigna unguiculata_ L.) and peanut (_Arachis hypogaea_ L.). In these areas, the reduction of the peanut prices (during the 1980s-1990s, also due to the devaluation of the West African CFA franc and the Central African CFA franc--CFA Franc), the climatic uncertainty and the soil degradation caused the decrease of incomes and the impoverishment of the rural population, producing a large emigration to Dakar and abroad [58; 59]. In particular, two of the three considered regions (Fatick and Thies) appear geographically and economically more advantaged (with access to the sea), while the third (Diourbel) is more inland, drought-stricken and not provided with an efficient road network. The main sources of up-to date information related to these regions were deduced from the regional reports made by the National Statistic Agency of Senegal (_Agence Nationale de la Statistique de la Demographie_--ANSD). However, such available gender disaggregated data were not completely uniform and harmonized, providing diverse types of information (for instance only limited to education, health or agriculture issues) for each analyzed region. Figure 1: The three studied regions. In these three regions, the heads of the agricultural households are mainly male, compared with a proportion of women varying between 13% and 15% (the same average than at the national level) [56]. The region of Thies is an important centre of agricultural production due to its potential in water and soil characteristics. In 2009, the regional population was about 13% of the Senegelese population, with an equal distribution between women and men [60]. The population of the Fatick region, is young (as in the whole Senegal, where more than 50% of the population is under twenty years), while the sex ratio amounted to 98 men per 100 women [61].