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cropping season. The left-over branches after pruning provide fuelwood; prunings used as mulch eliminate soil erosion; and during the dry season, the "fertilizer bush" can be cut and used as a nutritious source of animal fodder, as well as generating plenty of green manure for the next growing season. The primary benefit of alley farming is that the fertilizer which is naturally released, regenerates the soil and offers women the possibility of greatly extending their cropping period. This possibility is the only feasible alternative to shifting cultivation, common among small-scale farmers today.

4.19 Farmers everywhere, especially women, are reluctant to plant trees. Identifying the "concerns" of the potential adopters and establishing "congruence" between the interests of the farmers and the new method of farming is critical to increase the numbers of adopters. This was achieved at a research site of IITA by recognizing that farmers did not believe "trees" should be on farm fields. The extension approach of calling alley cropping the "fertilizer bush" brought a rapid increase in numbers of farmers planting alley farms. However, research institutes also need to ra^ognize that acquiring expertise in using the system is a process, not art event. Alley farming as an alternative to shifting cultivation, or what is basically a lifestyle to African farmers, requires changes in farming behavior and cultural attitudes. Research needs to focus on the support that farmers require to sustain their alley farms and the consequences which arise from making different uses of the products of the system, e.g. mulch versus fodder (Cashman 1989).

# c. Livestock

4.20 Raising small ruminant animals and poultry are often women's activities. Although sufficient work appears to be in progress on animal husbandry, animal housing and breeding stocks, animal nutrition is a major problem because of seasonal fluctuation in feed supplies and farmers' inability to purchase external inputs (Yates 1989). Alley farming and small intensive feed gardens for fodder production are promising technologies for improving animal nutrition. Many women in rural areas combine goat production with food processing activities. Cassava peels or other by-products of smallscale food production, combined with household wastes, are an important livestock feed. Owning a small number of animals can be an attractive, efficient subsidiary enterprise, complementing crop production. (Okali and Sumberg 1986)

# d. Labor-Saving Food Processing and Storage Technology

4.21 Without technologies to reduce the time-consuming tasks of fuel and water gathering, women will have little time or energy to attend extension sessions, adopt recommendations, and thereby improve agricultural practices.

4.22 Organized research should do for household production activities what agricultural research does for farm production activities. Long overdue advances are such technologies as "simple equipment to break and remove the hard husk of sorghum that would eliminate the backbreaking work of so many women throughout Central Africa.... much of the work in agriculture in many countries of Africa is done by women [so] a part of agricultural research