Bugiri women farmers being trained on how to use technology to boost productionA section of farmers in Bugiri district have raised concerns over the low access to land by women, saying that despite being the largest contributors of labour in agriculture, their development is being hampered by failure to own land, due to archaic customary practices that have left them at the mercy of their spouses.Under their umbrella group, Nabigingo SACCO Limited, the women expressed their concerns during a training on agriculture digital technology organized by the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), alongside M-Omulimisa, an innovative agri-tech company and Uganda Forum for Cultural Advisory Services in Bugiri district last week.Annet Irumbi, a mixed crop farmer from Mayole village in Bugiri district revealed that one of the challenges encountered by women, is that after marriage and being put in charge of land for farming, upon harvest of the produce, the husband at times take charge of selling the produce, leaving their wives to grapple with fulfilling responsibilities at home given that some men abandon women in home and leave them with sole responsibility of raising the children.She noted, “I have worked and lived with women for long and you find that many of them never inherited land from their biological families and in case they’re allocated land by their biological families, usually this land is smaller compared to the quantity allocated to the men because men can be allocated 5-8acres, but the woman can be allocated a quarter or an acre, that she can use to build her own house.”ASARECA and M-Omulimisa officials training farmers on how to use technology to boost productionIrumbi noted that the situation would be better for women farmers if they were given an equal share of inheritance from their biological families arguing, “If I was to do farming on the man’s land, he can come and take all the harvest and if I try to protest, he will ask me if I am the head of the home but if I had my own money and rented land, I can tell him that the land is owned by the women’s group, so I am able to raise money to raise my children. The truth is, there is no man that gives their daughters 100% equal share of land as the boys.”Women in Uganda make up 51% of the population (UBOS, 2002) and provide over 70% of the labour for agriculture. Despite this statistic, women own only 7% of land as their rights to ownership is restricted both in the natal and matrimonial homes (Ellis et al., 2006).Irumba’s frustration is shared by Antonina Taaka, also a farmer in Nabigingo Parish, in Bugiri district who detailed the suffering women endure due to lack of land, which is further exacerbated by the child neglect by their own fathers, thud leaving the women to shoulder the responsibilities of farming as well as raising the children.She explained, “When women leave their biological homes to go and get married, we have no share of the assets left behind because where we go to get married is where our share is. Even in the homes where we are born, when property is distributed amongst boys and girls, our share is small, while some women are unluckier, they don’t get share of property from their biological homes. As women, we are putting more labour in agriculture production compared to men, men don’t even know how to dig, they have left all the digging to us women.”ASARECA and M-Omulimisa are training farmers on how to use technology to boost productionTaaka noted that the situation is worsened by the extramarital affairs the men are having outside their marriage and yet the children borne out of those relationships suffer similar fate as the children borne out of marriages, which has forced her to work harder and ensure her daughters have attain an education and better future.“The men are indulging in extramarital affairs that are resulting into several pregnancies and yet these children too, are being abandoned. All they’re doing is getting more women, that’s the business of men. So as women, we are asking for improvement in the conditions so that we also have a share in the property being distributed and have a place in homes. I want my daughters to go to school and study and after I get them some form of employment,” explained Taaka.Daniel Ninsiima, Managing Director at M-Omulimisa, an agriculture technology company confirmed that women’s limited access to land has hampered development of Uganda’s agriculture sector, despite this group of Ugandans offering the largest share of labour in the sector.He noted, “You know, access to land in Africa is a socio-cultural problem. Traditionally, in our communities, women would not inherit land from their fathers, and I think that has gone on for years, and that is still a practise across Africa, and Uganda specifically. In these communities, it’s very hard for a woman to inherit land from their dad, even when the husband actually dies, the family of the husband will try always to make sure they chase this widow from the family property.”Ninsiima noted that although Uganda has the legal environment that supports women ownership to the land, there is need to involve the men more in these communities, as well as involve the cultural leaders, so that the message goes down to the communities, to understand that women are very important in the development of the agriculture sector.“Women provide, actually, most of the labour in agriculture, but they don’t benefit from that. They lack access to finance, access to accession services, even access to technology, phones, for example. That is gendered as well. Less women have mobile phones, have access to mobile phones, compared to basically men. We need to have discussions within our communities, talk to the men, talk to the cultural leaders, people that actually have opinion leaders in our communities, so they appreciate that women have a role to play, and they also have equal rights to land ownership and access,” explained Ninsiima.Although Ninsiima noted that the practice of leaving women out of inheritance is reducing, the speed at which the practice is reducing isn’t in tandem with the desirable need and the impact the exclusion is having on the rights of women.He added, “I think we need to involve men into this process, and I think I’ve seen that changing in some communities, so that women can have right, of course, to land and women can be able to inherit, for example, their father’s property. I think it has touched on the policy level, of course, so that the policy level, and of course that’s what it is at the moment, but because of cultural norms, even when there is a legal environment in place that actually supports that, it doesn’t happen.”The post Bugiri Women Farmers Decry Limited Land Ownership Due To Archaic Customary Practices appeared first on Business Focus.