Document(s) 18 de 40

The research analysis presented in this report is part of the author's one year internship during 1996-97 with the Gender and Sustainable Development Unit (GSD) of International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada.

Table of Contents 

Acknowledgements 

Executive Summary  

I Defining the Research Parameters  

Background 
Research Objectives of the Study 

II Methodology  

Developing Research Questions  
Designing Data Collection Instruments 
Research Ethics 

III Analysis of Data 

Education and Training in Urban Agriculture  

Bylaws 
Promotion of Sustainable Environmentally-Friendly Urban Agriculture 
Health and Indigenous Knowledge in Urban Agriculture  
Skills on Negotiation and Leadership Building  
 
Sustainable Income Generation  

Micro-Credit/Loan  
Quality Control and Opportunities of Market Outlets  
Cooperative Formation  

Social Services 

Child Labour  
Protection from Vandalism 
Shelter from Family Violence 

Organizations' Capacity in Gender Sensitive Urban Agriculture Research 

Organizations' Internal Meetings 
Education Programmes on Gender Analysis 
Networking, Publication and Dissemination of Information 

IV Conclusion 
Lessons Learned  
An Opportunity for Double-Loop Learning  

Appendix 1:  List of Organizations Visited 
Appendix 2:  Questionnaire Guidelines 
Appendix 3: Record of Responses from Questionnaire  

Appendix 4: Understanding Gender in the context of Urban Agriculture: A Literature Review 

Gender and Land  
 
Communal Land 
Resettlement Land 
Commercial Land 
Implications of Land Ownershipat Household Level 

Gender and Extension Services in Urban Agriculture  
Household Economy and Nutrition in Urban Agriculture 
 
Appendix 5: Bibliography 

Appendix 6:  Endnote 
 

Acknowledgements 

The author would like to thank the Gender and Sustainable Development Unit and the Cities Feeding People programme initiative of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada for institutional and financial support during the author's Professional Development Award programme.  The author is grateful to assistance from Ms. Kathleen Clancy and Ms. Brenda Lee Wilson of IDRC for their advise and guidance throughout the internship and editorial comments for finalizing the research report. 

A number of individuals in the NGOs, community-based organizations, academics and professionals in research institutes in Accra (Ghana), Harare (Zimbabwe) and Kampala (Uganda) were helpful in the fieldwork, but special thanks are due to Mr. Patrick Mulindwa at the Makarere Institute of Social Research in Kampala,Uganda, Mr. Issac Chaipa at ENDA- Zimbabwe in Harare, Zimbabwe and Ms. Charlotte Mensah at the Noguchi Memorial Institute of Medical Research in Legon, Ghana.  The author would like to thank all the participants of various interviews carried out for the study. 
 

Executive Summary 

The research analysis presented in this report is part of the author's one year internship during 1996-97 with the Gender and Sustainable Development Unit (GSD) of International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada.  The research aimed at three major objectives, 1)  determining the nature and extent to which the NGOs, IDRC research partners, academic and research institutes in Harare (Zimbabwe),  Kampala (Uganda) and Accra (Ghana) and have adopted policies and strategies for engendering urban agriculture projects i.e organization's capacity in gender analysis in urban agriculture, gender equity in programme design and resource allocation and distribution;  2) through a participatory learning approach, scope out the organizations capacities and commitments to gender integration in urban agriculture in their policies and programmings and 3) sharing the research results with IDRC's  Cities Feeding People programme initiative to strengthen its Africa urban agriculture network development activity for promotion of gender sensitive urban agriculture research. 

In Harare, Kampala and Accra,  the three African cities where the research took place, urban agriculture in general referred to carrying out farming activities in open spaces and keeping livestock and poultry in confined space in city and peri-urban areas. The importance of urban agriculture was discussed as one of the  crucial sustainable livelihood strategies for urban poor households. Farming in the city by women was identified as a common way of describing urban agriculture to many. Organizations which were involved in advocacy work on issues such as women's land rights and fair trade conditions for women were more aware of what gender means in development and how gender relates to urban agriculture programme delivery. 

Major recommendations from the research results are listed below:  

* An effective network should be created between the Cities Feeding People  programme 
initiative (CFP PI) of IDRC and the NGOs, academic and research institutes which are directly and indirectly participating in research on gender issues in urban agriculture. Such a participatory learning partnership network should be established to share gender sensitive research which is being developed or has already been conducted. This would also create opportunities for effective gender focussed policy interventions. 

* The IDRC research partners for CFP PI may consider, as outlined in Beijing Platform for Action,  involving NGOs, academics and research institutes and members of civil society who are good in gender analysis to contribute in developing gender sensitive research proposals, designing data collection instruments and gender analysis of research data. 

* CFP PI should select its research partner organizations which have institutional structures that allows members of the organizations to participate in the processes of main- streaming gender, that have strong institutional foundation and research commitments to gender dimensions of urban agriculture. 
 
I.  Defining the Research Parameters 

Background 

During the 1980s and 1990s poverty has become increasingly concentrated in urban settlements for both economic and demographic reasons. Approximately one quarter of the developing world's absolute poor lived in urban areas in 1988. By 2000 this number will have risen to one half, with the urban poor in developing countries making up 56% of the world's poor households.  The majority of these households willbe headed by women (Kanji 1995).  Between 1990 and 2025, the world's city dwellers expected to be more than 5 billion people, making up nearly two-thirds of the global population. This trend is being aggravated by citywide migration of the rural poor and further impoverishment of large sectors of the urban population due to various factors, both structural and conjectural. One of the main reasons of recent migration from rural to urban areas is to reunite with families who have left earlier for cities in quest of better living and better job but city authorities do not make enough  opportunities for migrant people to participate in open labour market. Often urban living conditions and environment do not create scope for utilizing traditional skills and knowledge. 

Economic crisis and structural adjustment policies introduced in developing countries have had a disproportionate impact on the urban poor, as they have resulted in rising food prices, declining real wages, redundancy in the formal labour market, and reduced public expenditure on basic services and infrastructure (Wratten 1995).  Research and studies of urban poverty often tends to neglect differences between men and women in terms of access to income, resources and services.  These differences occur within households and also between households and women-headed households are at a disadvantage when these are compared to male-headed households (Mitlin 1995). 

Urban agriculture is defined as food and fuel grown within the daily rhythm of the city or peri- urban areas produced directly for the market and frequently processed and marketed by the farmers (Smith and Nasr in ENDA-Zimbabwe 1996). This definition underlines the market orientation of urban agriculture. Production is for the urban market and both marketing and processing of the produce are mostly carried out by the women farmers themselves. Urban agriculture emerged largely as an unplanned activity in most cities in developing countries. Countries in Africa are not an exception. The nature, form and extent of urban agriculture vary regionally and among nations. A salient feature of many farming systems, including urban agriculture is the utilization of a wide range of domesticated, semi-domesticated, and non-domesticated resources.  In urban agriculture, domesticated resources defined as poultry (chicken, ducks, guineafowl), birds (pigeons) and small animals (rabbits, guineapigs, goats and cows), semi-domesticated animals are categorized as fish, livestock and non-domesticated resources are plants, crops, trees grows outside the house etc. Non-domesticated resources contributed to urban agriculture, household and community welfare in a complex manner and gender plays a crucial role in these matters (Scoones, Melnyk and Pretty 1992).  The choice of crops in a field is often contested between men and women within households. "Women regularly object to the planting of pearl millet because of the high processing labour demand (exclusively women'swork) and may surreptitiously withdraw labour from farming the plot.  In some cases, especially where the man is absent, women may refuse to plant millet and may always plant maize despite instructions. Data show how women opt for low labour input crops, such as maize.  By contrast, men focus on crops giving good cash returns (maize, sunflower, cotton) or good food security prospects (millet)" (Scoones, et.al 1996). 

This research study was conceived out of two outstanding issues that are common in the urban agriculture sector of Accra in Ghana, Kampala in Uganda and Harare in Zimbabwe. 

First, an increase in female-headed households in existing and growing urban areas in Africa has meant that women's role in ensuring programmesthat operate from a gender perspective and to societies in Africa which has engaged the female population to ensure household food security, education and medial expenditure for children, house rent and other related costs.  But, national policy in most of the African cities fails to adopt a sustainable, safe and equitable urban agriculture policy acceptable and agreeable to urban men and women farmers. As a result, along gender lines, poverty has increased and urban agriculture related risks, insecurity and injustice have made the farmers especially the women farmers vulnerable. 

Secondly,  NGOs and research institutes in African cities are involved in various action research directly and indirectly on urban agriculture.  These research include analysis in land issues, training and education programmes in urban agriculture and urban by-laws and conducting studies to confirm gender equity in resource allocation and distribution. Lack of effective networking and weaker presence of integration between various research organizations and NGOs fail to share good practices with government policy makers for the well being of urban farmers. The research results presented in this paper, through a participatory learning process, tried to demonstrate the good practices in gender capacity building in urban agriculture activities of various organisations in three cities of Africa, viz. Harare, Kampala and Accra. 

(Footnote:  Mahbuba Kaneez Hasna, the author of the research study was a gender intern (1996-97) for the Gender and Sustainable Development Unit of IDRC, Ottawa.  She is a Social Scientist and her background is in Development Studies.  She has experience of working in Asia, Africa and Europe on rural and urban sustainable livelihood strategies of men and women.  The author has special interest and experience in gender issues and urban agriculture in South Asia. She intended to share her own project experiences with NGOs, research institutes and IDRC researchpartners in Africa in order to build gender research capacity and scope out entry points of gender analysis in urban agriculture programme designs).  

Research Objectives of the Study 

i) To determine the nature and extent to which the NGOs, IDRC research partners, academic and research institutes in Accra, Kampala and Harare have adopted policies and strategies for engendering urban agriculture projects i.e organization's capacity in gender analysis in urban agriculture and gender equity in programme design, resource allocation and distribution; 

ii) To learn ideas and methods from NGOs, IDRC research partners and academic and research institutes on their capacity and commitment to gender integration in urban agriculture, including policy and programming, training and workshops and practical experiences of  preparing gender sensitive project proposals with quantitative and participatory research methodologies; 

iii) To formulate and share suggestions with NGOs, IDRC research partners and academic and research institutes on methods and practices that lead to better integration of gender analysis into the research projects, programme design and execution of projects; and 

iv) To share the research results with IDRC's Cities Feeding People programme initiative to strengthen its Africa Urban Agriculture Network development activity for promotion of gender sensitive urban agriculture research. 

II.   Methodology 

The following section outlines the author's involvement with different programme initiatives of IDRC, contacts with Canadian NGOs and NGOs and researchers in academic and research institutes in Uganda, Zimbabwe and Ghana where the research took place.  The sampling procedure,  development of research questions, and designing the data collection instruments are also described. 

Developing Research Questions 

At the initial stage of the research study, discussions were took place between the author and the Programme Officer and the team leader of CFP PI of IDRC to develop the research questions. Consultation with  the Team Leader of CFP suggested that three urban agriculture projects in Harare (Zimbabwe), Kampala (Uganda) and Accra (Ghana) would be useful to study since the three projects were at different stages of development and they represent useful sample of IDRC research partners.  It was decided that a comparative analysis of gender research capacity of three IDRC partner organizations along with other NGOs in three cities would provide guidelines to CFP PI in order to identify future research partners, and help develop network for research capacity building between the NGOs and IDRC partner organizations. It was felt that research results will also establish scope for IDRC training and research support to these organizations from a gender perspective.  Meetings were also arranged with the IDRC programme officers of Micronutrients, Ecosystem Approaches to Human Health, and Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme initiatives. During these meetings, research ideas were shared, and outstanding issues in urban agriculture were discussed. The author attended seminars on international food security at the Ryerson College in Toronto and International Women's Health Congress at the University of Saskatoon in Saskatchewan during the preparation of the research questions. In these conferences, the author presented papers on NGO participation in urban agriculture in inner cities of the Midlands in the United Kingdom and scope for utilizing indigenous knowledge on urban agriculture. Contacts were established with Canadian and international NGOs for further research ideas on gender and urban agriculture studies in Africa  and disseminations of research results. 

The three project files, which were recommended for sample of the research study, were reviewed and initial correspondence was established with the IDRC research partners. The rationale of the research and research objectives were shared with CFP team in Ottawa and with the IDRC research partners in Accra, Harare and Kampala.  The author contacted Canadian NGOs in Ottawa who have projects in the three cities in Africa in order to develop an inventory of NGOs and research institutes involved in urban agriculture. Some of the NGOs and research centres were contacted prior to the field trip. 

The author did a literature review on urban agriculture and land issues in Africa and also studied IDRC literature on indicators for evaluating IDRC research partners.  Ideas from the meetings, conferences and literature reviews were useful to broaden the research objectives, design research questionnaire, develop research methodology and strengthen the list of contact persons.   The draft questionnaire was shared with the resource people within and outside IDRC who helped to develop the research questions. 

Designing Data Collection Instruments 

The research data and analysis presented in this paper consist of data from a total of thirty organizations who were interviewed.  Of the total, nineteen were NGOs, three were IDRC research partners and eight were university faculty members engaged in teaching and research in urban agriculture and gender studies. The three projects were funded by IDRC's Cities Feeding People programme initiative. The projects titled: 

1)  Socio-Economic and Ecological Impacts of Urban Agriculture in Harare (Project  95-0007); 
 
2) Farming in the City: Impacts and Issues of Urban Agriculture in Kampala, Uganda (Project 00919);  and 

3) Promoting Urban Food and Nutritional Security for the Vulnerable in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA): Role and Impact of Urban Agriculture (Project 03149) . 

In most cases the Director of the organizations, and research officers were interviewed. In two incidences, a group interview was conducted.  In a few cases, the Director of an organization requested a split interview as he or she was not fully aware of details of programme activities. 

The research was qualitative with an open ended, loosely structure questionnaire used for the research. Verbatim reports were taken from the interviews and later data was collated from the questionnaire. During the interviews, organizations also shared research reports, draft proposals, annual reports, programme activity reports, research articles,  manuals, brochures and  consultants' reports on gender mainstreaming activities. As part of the research methodology, the author shared the CFP PI's Gender Guidelines. The guidelines offer a set of questions for gender analysis to be used during the preparation of a project proposal. 

In each country, an officer from the IDRC partner organization accompanied the author with the objective of cross-fertilizing ideas and experiences in research and action programmes. On one occasion, the interview was stopped because the data was influenced by the presence of a donor representative. It was replaced by interviewing another member of the organization. 

The author also met the gender research team from Women's Studies Department in Kampala, Harare, and Accra. Résumés of researchers with gender expertise were collected for the IDRC Gender and Sustainable Development Unit's gender data base. 

A literature review on understanding gender in the context of urban agriculture is provided in Appendix 4 for the purpose of understanding the concept of the study. 
 
Research Ethics 

Participation of the respondents was voluntary and names of the respondents were not recorded for the purpose of the confidentiality of the study. The findings from the study will help those who will be interested to implement the recommendations if applies to their organizational mandates.  The lessons from the study will create spin-off impact on other cities of Africa for environmentally-friendly urban agriculture. 

III.   Analysis of Data 

Thissection presents the analysis of research data gathered from administering the questionnaire. The questionnaire outlined information related to different types of interventions made by NGOs and IDRC's partner research institutes in order to deliver sustainable gender- sensitive urban agriculture. The research identified that educating farmers in urban bylaws and training them in urban agriculture by utilizing farmers' indigenous knowledge, tends to increase greater participation in and generation of income from urban agriculture. Good practice among NGOs enable men and women farmers to participate equally in urban agriculture activities and the well-beings of their families.  This section also elaborates on current activities of organizations for strengthening their gender research capacities in urban agriculture. 

Education and Training 

Education and training programmes are among the various approaches taken by organizations to enable urban farmers to conduct urban agriculture in an organized way to receive more attention, support, and output from their activities. Training farmers to acquire adequate knowledge on 1)  urban bylaws, 2)  practice of sustainable, environmentally-friendly urban agriculture which does not endanger environmental health and promoting health and 3)  indigenous knowledge in urban farming were found as few crucial steps taken by NGOs. 
 
Bylaws 

Zimbabwe 

In a study in Zimbabwe (Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, University of Zimbabwe, 1997), 480 urban agriculturists were interviewed, 266 were women and 214 were men. The study found 72% of respondents believed cultivationin the city and peri-urban areas is legal and were not aware of any bylaws restricting this practice; 16% did not think that urban agriculture is legal but were unaware of farming rules and regulations in designated and non-designated areas as described by the Harare City Council; and the remaining did not know of the legal status of urban agriculture and were not aware of the existence of bylaws. 

In a workshop,  held in Harare, organised by the ETC International and ENDA-Zimbabwe the womenfarmer participants expressed an interest in reforming the existing urban bylaws which date back to 1965. They claimed that the old bylaws are inappropriate due to current economic hardship which effect them most since they are at the forefront of household food insecurity.  Women farmers were so agitated by the bylaws that they demanded a dialogue between them and the Harare City Council prior to the issuing of any new bylaws. They believe bylaws should be finalised only after effective consultation as a reflection of women farmers' consensus.  They proposed that new bylaws should be circulated to farmers in local languages and in easily comprehensible language as women farmers have a relative lower rate of English literacy than male farmers.  During the workshop the women farmers asked Harare City Council to legalise urban agriculture arguing that legal protection of urban agriculture practices can be seen as an opportunity to promote household food security rather than as a risky business venture. 

The Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU), which provides a variety of support to its male and female farmer members primarily through the formation of groups and associations has taken initiatives to deliver gender focussed short training programmes to educate its members on urban bylaws.  Most of these training courses are interactive and handouts are printed in local languages and are distributed free to its members. These training courses are advertised in ZFU's newsletter, which is also printed in two languages. ZFU also lobbies the City Council to influence its decisions on commercial, legal, political and economic issues with the goal of achieving special concessionary considerations, such as, tax rebates and low interest rates, for small holding farmers, who, in most cases, are women. It was noted that women farmers lack access to information on technical courses such as; large-scale production management and profit making mechanisms. In most cases male farmers and producers are the main recipients of these courses. It was reported that workshop organisers and implementing agencies often tend to ignore the issues of distance, language, age, transport cost and home and child care issues which effects women's participation. 

Uganda 

Action for Development (ACFODE) in Kampala, an advocacy and pressure group for women, hosts informal, interactive meetings for its women farmer members to provide them with an opportunity to learn about new legislation that affects women, including information about urban bylaws. One of the pre-conditions for women to receive loans for fast food business from the Uganda Women's Finance and Credit Trust Limited (UWFCTL) is that they must be familiar with urban bylaws. UWFCTL offers pre-loan orientation sessions which focus primarily on rules and regulations on small trade management and loan repayments but also include information on urban bylaws. Through a survey, the Trust found that women food traders who are currently involved in urban farming rarely knew about specific bylaws regarding urban farming. Their family members also had little or no knowledge in this area. 

Promotion of Sustainable, Environmentally-Friendly Urban Agriculture 

During the interviews for this research study, NGOs in all three cities reported that government ministries are concerned that crop and vegetable cultivation in urban and peri- urban areas is causing disease to human beings. A few NGOs in the three African cities where the study took place, are helping farmers to understand natural farming practices in the city which do not require chemical fertilizers of pesticides that endanger human health. 
 
Zimbabwe 

A statement from the Ministry of Health in Harare identified an increase in malaria transmission following the increased practices of urban agriculture in the city. Contamination of the municipal water supply from herbicides and chemical pesticides was also seen to be due to urban agriculture. A discussion with a United Nations (UN) respondent in Harare revealed that the main diseases in the city attributable to urban agriculture are malaria, diarrhoea, plague and leptospirosis. It was also reported that situations of increased fly breeding in the city are caused by poultry and pig raising. No references were made in the context of the comment. Urban agriculture is seen as working against the overall city health,  added the UN respondent. 

Zimbabwe Women's Bureau and Natural Farmers Network (NFN) in Harare operate education programme for urban farmers on management of urban forests by tree plantation. NFN included a series of training on species diversity and permaculture for environmentally-friendly urban agriculture in its project proposal.  NFN has also started dialogues with farming families on alternative to maize production in order to reduce soil erosion and water use and rainwater harvesting. 

The Natural Farmers Network (NFN) addresses environmental degradation in order to protect urban agriculture in Zimbabwe. NFN has developed a project proposal for the establishment of an urban agriculture extension programme by the beginning of 1998. Advocacy for natural farming practices is the focus of the project. The project aims at set up a demonstration project in the suburbs of Tafara and Mabvuk which will be replicated in greater urban areas of Harare. The project focuses on the improvement of production on small pieces of land. The farmers will assist other farmers in improving the soil using organic materials and in the selection of crops that can be grown for consumption and also have high market value. NFN will have a series of workshops to teach methods of recycling waste and management of wastewater, raise awareness on conservation and demonstrate how to conserve and rehabilitate resources, all of which will contribute to food security in urban areas. 

Acquisition of land for both community gardening and sitesfor making organic manure was mentioned as crucial issue for most of the NGOs who have become involved in the urban agriculture extension programme scheduled to start in 1998. 

Ghana 

The May Day Rural Project (MRP) in Accrahas started its programme activities on urban agriculture. NGOs have identified a demand among the farming community to learn about the causes of soil erosion, siltation of rivers and dams, and deforestation, and to learn how to use organic manures, compost and natural pesticides in farming.  As such, the Centre for Community Studies, Actions and Development (CENCOSAD) and YWCA in Accra have training workshops on environmental aspects of urban agriculture. 

MRP is recycling domestic organic wastes as a low cost organic fertilizer for farming vegetables. MRP is involved in a fibre sorghum project for the production of animal feed for zero-grazing livestock and wishes to investigate the feasibility of a water pump to feed the livestock. which do not require chemical fertilizers of pesticides that endanger human health. 

Uganda 

A few NGOs in Kampala shared their concern that human health in the cities has decreased due to the increased rate of cultivation in recent years in Kampala city. It was emphasized that the advent of independence brought with it rapid urban population growth with more and more people looking for formal market  employment.  In addition, rural-urban migration has increased due to persistent droughts and worsening economic conditions on farms was also pointed out.  The Makerere Institute of Social Research  suggested that the National Farmers Association (NFA) and ACFODE in Uganda and other NGOs should consider introducing multi-disciplinary, comprehensive education and training programme for men and women urban farmers which would result in promoting systematic or integrated urban farming and generate micro projects such as recycling, micro-credit for fixed place and sheltered street food stalls. 

Several organisations identified the issue of garbage accumulation in the city market places and street corners are degrading the urban environment.  NGOs have taken small-scale measures to add this issue by developing training programmes on small-scale composting using  bio- degradable vegetable waste and on the preparation of briquette for fuel. 

ACFODE and the Department of Soil Science at the Makerere University in Kampala have prepared two research proposals to look into gender aspects of fruit and vegetable peel recycling. 

Health and Indigenous Knowledge in Urban Agriculture 

Zimbabwe 

Natural Farmers Network (NFN) in Harare isconcerned about integrating indigenous knowledge in Zimbabwean environment development programme. It expressed an interest in integrating indigenous knowledge within its training courses for urban farmers in permaculture and species diversity. The Zimbabwean Women Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN) has translated a manual on Hygienic Ways of Poultry Keeping into Shona and Ndebele languages as a follow-up action of a research project on utilization of indigenous knowledge in urban poultry farming. It waspointed out that urban farming can be promoted in a positive and more productive way if NGOs can provide language translations services, and conversion of technical documents into user-friendly languages. "The Zimbabwean Farmer", which is a market information newsletter for registered men and women agriculture farmers of ZFU, is translated into two local languages. 

Research interviews revealed that Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU),  with the support of Agritex and the Cotton Research Institute,will replicate a successful project in greater Harare which will involve trapping run-off water for harvesting and orchard development. The project will collaborate with urban farmers who are already involved in small scale workshops on crops and vegetable production. Training will be provided specifically to women farmers who are members of ZFU and who have showed their interest in moving into fruit production and processing. The Home Economics Association in Epworth High School near Harare shared theirplan to initiate a small-scale training programme with the Zimbabwe Women's Bureau to train female urban food sellers in hygiene practices in food production and preparation and in successful marketing strategies in the informal sector.  They believe this training will reduce health risks for customers and secure profitable businesses for women who may or may not be directly involved in farming in the city and peri-urban areas. 

Ghana 

Centre for Community Studies and Action and Development (CENCOSAD) in Accra has identified the need for training workshops for urban farmers in food safety and control of contamination. Women are mostly involved in fast food selling by the roadside and in market places but training programmes on hygiene and food safety have always been neglected. 

CARE-Ghana in Accra pointed out that the Department of Health of Accra has noted the conflict between public health concerns and the livelihoods of urban farmers and shown its concern ina recent seminar organised by the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research. CARE-Ghana supported the promotion of urban agriculture from field level to the market place and raised the concern of how to make vegetable production and supply a safe and healthy food option for city people without jeopardizing the market for the fast food business, which is a sector in Accra reported as predominantly occupied by women.  However, no concrete alternatives were suggested. CARE-Ghana expressed its interest in including hygiene education for household and market food preparation during its forthcoming countrywide survey on household food security.  The newsletter to be handed out during the survey includes information ranging sources of seeds and plants to promotion of new varieties of vegetable production for promotion of household nutrition. 

A discussion with a researcher at the University of Accra in Legon revealed that women traditionally possess indigenous knowledge in fruit and vegetable preservation and packaging.  Often this indigenous knowledge is threatened by the mechanisation of food preservation and packaging industries in the cities as urban farmers, and specifically women farmers move from the villages to the cities. 

CARE-Ghana in Accra raised concern regarding the lack of water pumps in urban agricultural areas. In addition, lack of training on wastewater management, water trapping techniques, 
rainwater harvesting and gray water treatment for urban farmers were indicated as possible reasons for the use of contaminated sources of water. 

Uganda 

In Kampala, MISR also pointed out that it is important to conduct a systematic research on indigenous practices in urban agriculture which would promote the use of indigenous knowledge in seed selection, species diversity, permaculture as well as the traditional practices in fruit, vegetable and crop cultivation, processing and preservation, vis a vis the practice of new and affordable technologies for the sustainable income generation in urban agriculture sector.  Researchers from CONCERN in Kampala and MISR identified that due to lack of hand pumps near urban agriculture practice areas, both male and female farmers occasionally use non-potable polluted water sources for watering their vegetable plots, and for washing, cleaning and cooking vegetables. 

Skills on Negotiation and Leadership Building 

Requests were made by women farmers that NGOs help them to develop an improved dialogue with the city council officials on issues related to Council's slash and burn policies, the imposition of sanctions for urban agriculture, and the protection of farmers' rights by taking measuresto prevent vandalism and theft of urban agriculture produce. 

Zimbabwe 

ZFU helps in group formation by encouraging men and women farmers to organize themselves, form cooperatives and draw up a constitution which governs them.  Zimbabwe Women's Bureau occasionally organizes workshops on assertiveness and leadership skills for women engaged in different trades and professions including urban farmers in collaboration with ZWRCN.  Role plays and simulation games help the trainees to develop problem solving skills and stimulate their capacity of critical thinking. 

Ghana 

The May Day Rural Project (MDRP) in Accra  has integrated leadership building exercises into its programme delivery mechanisms, providing leadership skills through non-formal and participatory programmes for community-based male and female "opinion leaders," i.e. extension workers who are MDRP partners. 

Uganda 

ACFODE and UWFCTL in Kampala assist the male and female farmers in techniques of group formation and raise awareness on developing co-operatives. UWFCTL help the farmers in confidence building and negotiation skills development. 

Sustainable Income Generation 

The discussion below gives an outline of how organizations provide of support services related to institutionalizing urban agriculture. These activities enable farmers access to credit for urban agriculture business, learn how to market quality urban agriculture produce, and how to organize men and women farmers for better co-ordination in delivery of services. 

Micro-Credit/Loan 

Uganda 

In Kampala, MISR mentioned that possibilities to promote micro-credit facilities for sustainable urban agricultural activities for income generation have not been investigated by researchers.  The issue of collateral, which is often not available, is an important matter to take into consideration. When credit is not available from the banks, there are informal credit facilities available. It was reported that due to lack of research information, enough evidence is unavailable on why private sector is tending to ignore the raising demand of micro-credit and not offering supports for credit facilities with assurance of return of loans. 

The Uganda Women's Finance and Credit Trust Limited (UWFCTL) helps women to learn accountancy and business skills in order to gain access to credit to secure their on-going business. Credit is provided by the UWFCTL to run fast food businesses in the evening in city markets. It was confirmed that women traders in most cases use their husbands' capital to start the business which give them limited access to control over their profit or income.  Therefore, the programme arranges short business courses for their female loan recipients and encourages them to develop banking habits and start business from their own capital. 

Zimbabwe 

In Zimbabwe, ZFU evaluates the performance of its members, advises them to raise funds from the informal sector, looks at the profit margin and writes recommendation letters for the members.  The bank announces its loan programmes through ZFU magazines which are distributed free to its members. During the interviews ZFU staff indicated that their experience showed that with loans, women farmers tend to buy sewing machines to run tailor shops in the city market as an alternative to agriculture farming while male farmers are likely to begin a motor mechanic or welding shop. These businesses are reported to be more profitable and less risky than urban agriculture.  Issues such as market security, occasional harassment from the city council appointed Market Guards, risk of seasonal unemployment,  perishable vegetable and lack of storage facilities make the income generation from urban agriculture quite vulnerable. 

Zimbabwe Project (ZIMPRO) has a revolving loan fund programme and Savings and Credit Scheme for its member staff who also involved in urban farming. During the time of the interview, ZIMPRO staff members who have access to loan fund are all men. According to ZIMPRO most of the loan recipients although men but since they are full time employee of the organisations, their participation in the plots is on a part-time basis. Most of the produce are sold to ZIMPRO to run their staff canteen, and the profit earned from the produce goes back to a revolving fund represented by the women. 

Quality Control and Opportunities of Market Outlets  

Zimbabwe 

The Maize Commodity Association in Zimbabwe determines the price of the products through collective action.  The Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU) also influences the input price through lobbying input companies. The Home Economics Association in Epworth near Harare and Zimbabwe Women's Bureau also mentioned that quality control of produce from vegetables grown in the garden can ensure sustainable income generation.  Both organizations offer training on bottling and packaging of vegetable pickles, solar-dried vegetables and preserved fruits. 

ZFU Dairy FarmersAssociation supports the urban dairy farmers in selling pasteurised milk and milk produce, and maintains quality control of the dairy products.  It was also pointed out that majority of the dairy farmers of the Association are women. Transportation and types of vehicles used for the transportation of milk and milk produce, such as; cheese, skimmed milk, and yoghurt are crucial.  However, ZFU reported that in most of the cases, male farmers get more access to credit from banks compare to women dairy farmers for such investment because the technical information are often exposed to men more than they are to the women farmers and producers. Because of the reputation of Zimbabwe Dairy Association for good quality control of the dairy products, Zaire and Mozambique, the two neighbouring countries of Zimbabwe have already showed their interest to buy dairy products from the ZFU.  But it was raised that export market will be predominated by mostly men even through the production sector still predominated by women. ZFU showed their interest to enable women farmers to be actively involved in such crucial areas. 
 
The ZFU Horticulture Association organises and bears the cost of holding fairs to promote agricultural seed, vegetables and crops.  It also encourages people to grow organic vegetables and crops which also encourages the exchange of indigenous knowledge in practising urban agriculture. At the end of the fair farmers receive awards. For example, in a recent trade fair, thirty-five peanut butter grinding mills were distributed to organised women's groups in each province in Zimbabwe including Harare. Every Monday, the ZFU Diary Farmers Association organises a dairy sales day through which dairy producing families who are members of ZFU can sell pasteurised milk and yogurt in front of the ZFU Union offices in order to promote their produce. 

Ghana 

The opportunity for an export-oriented market for urban agriculture products may make it more profitable. In Accra, fast food business has become very profitable business, and women traders occasionally buy vegetables from women farmers.  Household members then sell home cooked meals to the city market. It was reported that vegetable salad has become a profitable business and YWCA in Accra expressed their interest to train YWCA volunteers to promote nutrition messages at the household level, with special target to food sellers in the market. YWCA has also evolved into snail and mushroom cultivation with the help of the National Agriculture Programme. It has been mentioned because with the increase of international community and tourists in Accra, there is an increased demand of snail and mushroom cultivation in Accra and other growing cities of West Africa. The MDRP in Accra is promoting the export potential of local red pepper producers, who are mostly women and the project aims to help improve pepper production and marketing for export.  The project supports women pepper farmers in the Ga and South Akwapim districts but targets to include the urban and peri-urban areas of Accra. The National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) in Accra informed that short-term micro-credit loans for on-going businesses encourage uptake of multiple projects and enhance profit making mechanisms. The Board is considering loan programmes for owners of road side food stalls and smoked fish sellers, who are mostly women. 

Cooperative Formation 

Zimbabwe 

There are three recognised farmers unions in Zimbabwe: the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) which represents predominantly white large-scale commercial farmers;  the Indigenous Commercial Farmers Union, which represents emerging black, large-scale commercial farmers;  and the Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU).  During discussion with the ZFU, staff mentioned that they are concerned with grassroots farmers who are poor and marginal and do not possess any land but cultivate as hired labour.  They support the farmers' use of "idle land" in the urban areas and encourage them to be member of ZFU through agriculture cooperative programmes. The members of ZFU farmers cooperatives becomes ZFU members and receive the benefits of various skill development programmes related to effective urban agriculture. ZFU also offers its members the opportunity to join in co-operative tractor schemes for rural farmers and urban plot holders providing shared ownership responsible for maintenance and right of privilege over use.  ZFU organizes special mobilisation activities to recruit women members into the union.  It has also formed women's clubs and designed training programmes and workshops in separate consultations with men and women. 

Social Services 

Good practice in NGOs who are working on urban agriculture related issues sometime offer the farmers to understand the need for equal opportunity of girl children in education, protecting women from family violence and protecting the urban agriculture produce from theft. The activities of NGOs on these issues are discussed in the following section. 

Child Labour 

Zimbabwe 

The Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) is an NGO and farmers' association based in Harare.  CFU often runs education programmes for its members to promote girls and boys education. However, concern that often girl children's time spent helping women members of the household in farming is not properly monitored. The girl children are more visible in the market places than in the plots.  ZIMPRO includes promotion of girls education in its orientation programme for urban farmers, who are mostly their staff. In was reported that in Accra, children are occasionally involved in urban agriculture-related activities, including fetching water, watering vegetables, fertilizing and cutting or picking vegetables and crops. Girl children also spend considerable time in poultry keeping and are often responsible for zero-grazing cows. 

Uganda 

YWCA's Land of Lake project and the Heifer International in Kampala have pointed out that both in urban or rural agriculture, girls spend more time with their parents in farming compare to boys. By tending poultry and grazing livestock, the girls allow their mothers to do household work, care for the elderly and the infants in the house and engage in income generation work including urban agriculture. Preparation of food and meals for street market and transportation also takes more of girl's time than that of boys in a family.  YWCA and ACFODE in Kampala raises the need to send girls more to school. 

Zimbabwe 

ENDA-Zimbabwe encourages its farmers to send children to school and not to employ them in farming. 

Ghana 

The Accra Department of Agriculture is in the process of developing a monitoring study on time spent by girl and boy children in urban agriculture. 
 
Protection from Vandalism 

Zimbabwe 

In was observed in Harare that farmers,  specifically women farmers,  hold their stalls near their households.  The Home Economics Association in Epworth reported that fear from vandalism in the market and high tax to reserve a table in the market often restricts women farmers to go to the city market to sell their produce. In Zimbabwe, women farmers and sellers have fixed days when they bring their produce to open markets for sale. The togetherness often helps to protect themselves from vandalism, mentioned by the Association. 

Uganda 

UWFCTL expressed their interest to provides security guards in city market for the safety of male and female food-stall holders who has businesses in the market from the financial help of UWFCTL. MISR reported that Ugandan female traders are well respected in city marketsand their produce are rarely vandalised. In most cases permanent food-stall holder are registered by the city market authority and pay tax to the market authority. 
 
Shelter from Family Violence 

Uganda 

ACFODE in Uganda has planned to initiate a shelter service for women who are victims of family violence. Occasionally they offer advice, guidance and small group workshops on interactive way of dealing with conflict, training on confidence building and other services related to moral support. The group also advice their women clients on new legislation in family law. 

Organizations' Capacity in Gender Sensitive Urban Agriculture Research 

Gender sensitive urban agriculture specifies activities which help to conduct research on urban agriculture from a gender perspective and scope out the capacity of strengthening gender analysis in urban agriculture. The study tried to identify thevarious initiatives taken by the NGOs,  IDRC research partners and universities to strengthen their gender expertise both within their research and the services they provide through their programmes. During the interviews, the organisations shared their understanding and practice of gender mainstreaming in order to conduct gender studies.  Efforts have included internal meetings, integrating gender into the education curriculum and are training to staff in gender analysis.  Some organizations have a capacity of  networking, publication and dissemination of information among the organizations. 

Organizations' Internal Meetings  

A few NGOs in Harare and Kampala informed that they hold weekly meetings on their project development and include gender as an agenda item. The staff hear presentations from field and extension workers about various urban agriculture related issues and problems which effect men and women farmers differently. It was pointed out by ZERO in Harare that their field workers identified selling vegetable in the market, controlling the market price, and organizing and participating in training workshops are key issues that affects male and female farmers differently.  The Feminist Studies Centre (FSC) in Harare and May Day Rural Project (MDR) in Accra mentioned that these problems remain unnoticed because researchers are not aware of these issues and their affect on farmers. Urban agriculture issues are often viewed as women's problems only even though men play crucial roles in urban agriculture relating to their knowledge of share and competitive market price, quality control and procurement price of produce, rules and regulations related to wholesale ofvegetables, taxes for road, transportation and the market etc. A few NGOs in Harare, Kampala and Accra proposed that urban agriculture representatives share their views during organizational meetings so that researchers can learn about the gender impact of various issues and strengthen their gender research capacity. 

Education Programmes on Gender Analysis 

Uganda 

The Department of Women's Studies (DWS), part of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Makerere University, has operated a Masters programme since 1991. DWS collaborates with Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. The programme serves Masters and PhD students. DWS also offers short evening courses in gender studies for trainers, managers and decision makers in the public, private and non- governmental sectors.  The Master's programme and other short courses are open to male and female candidates equally.  It was reportedthat the post-graduate study of the male and female students in gender courses has increased recently. 

DWS delivers gender and development training courses which address development conditions in East and Southern African countries. The courses are aimed at strengthening the knowledge and policy formation skills of the participants and improving their capabilities of channelling resources to grassroots women and men.  By the completion of each training programme, development workers in key positions will be equipped with conceptual tools and practical skills in gender sensitive development practice.  It is also the goal of the programme to train future trainers in various course modules so that they can form a core teaching resource that will ensure the programme's sustainability. The Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) has formed a gender research group in which five members have received Masters degree in Gender from overseas as well as from the Department of Women's Studies(DWS) at the Makerere University. 

The organizational mandate of Action for Development (ACFODE) in Kampala indicates that it has put in place for gender mainstreaming by ensuring solidarity, equality  and equity of the work it does.  Issues such as advocacy for law reform and the enforcement of women's rights to land access, and participation of women and girls in education indicate the capacity of ACFODE to undertake gender analysis at the level of institutional commitment. 

Zimbabwe 

The Gender Relations Division (GRD) of the SAPES Trust based in Harare launched a Master's programme in Gender Studies. There is a Gender Committee consisting of eleven members who represent eleven countries in East and Southern Africa.  The Trust liaises closely with the Feminist Studies Centre (FSC) in Harare. Dr. Patricia McFadden is the co- ordinator of the FSC and the head of GRD.  She has assisted to incorporate the curriculum for gender analysis into the Trust's Master's programme. Through this programme, gender sensitive methodologies are adapted for use in social science research.  The Trust mentioned that convincing African scholars of the importance of gender sensitivity in the selection, formulation and implementation of research ideas and studies remains a major challenge.  GRD also introduced an Internship programme in 1995 which allows young men and women researchers to affiliate with the Trust for six to twelve months to research about gender issues in the region and interact with women's groups in Zimbabwe. GRD of the SAPES Trust is facilitating national and regional workshops in South Africa and training its Research Associates on gender methodologies. 

ENDA-Zimbabwe encourages its staff members, who are from multi-disciplinary backgrounds, to work with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare in developing gender-specific research methodologies for urban food security and poverty alleviation. IDS publishes gender and poverty related resources and organizes occasional seminars on gender studies in the region. 

Some NGOs reported that the uptake of gender sensitive research and exposure to gender training for researchers and field workers are very much dependent to donors' intentions and sensitivity towards supporting gender work. Preference of research grants for post-graduate education in gender or women's studies are occasionally given to the female researchers over male researchers.  Donors also target their gender grants to female researchers because they believe gender means women.  This was seen as an inequality in gender capacity building. Male researchers among the IDRC research partners raised similar issue and showed their concern that funding from donors must maintain equity for making provisions for gender research courses for male and female research colleagues. It was pointed out that occasionally, research committees are gender bias and only offer membership to women. A few organisations reported that management committees in organizations give preference to their female researchers for access to courses for gender analysis. As a result,  male staff members, with knowledge on basic gender issues, havefewer or no opportunities to attend such courses. 

ENDA-Zimbabwe has commissioned a study on institutional capacity building to identify and facilitate a process of incorporating a gender strategy in ENDA's gender programme.  ENDA is currently negotiating with the Netherlands government to fund a training programme for ENDA researchers on gender-sensitive research, entitled "gender roots programme". 

Zimbabwe Women Bureau and Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN) conduct training for government officials, researchers and practitioners based in NGOs in gender sensitive, participatory rural appraisal (PRA) research methodologies. ZWRCN, the Feminist Studies Centre in Zimbabwe and the SAPES Trust co-operated in curriculumdevelopment on gender research and have ongoing research activities on gender and race issues relating to land access and land procurement in Zimbabwe. 

Ghana 

The Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) in Accra conducts interactive gender sensitisation workshops for its senior policy-makers. 

Lack of adequate gender research expertise is also due to lack of funding. IDRC research partners in the three cities of the study areas pointed out that gender was not given priority until the Beijing Declaration and Programme of Action proposed gender mainstreaming as a key area for donor support. Universities suggested that donor agencies are to blame for this low uptake of gender research by their partner organisations. They pointed out that donors often approve proposals which are not gender balanced and do not set aside any money in the budget for capacity-building in gender research. It was mentioned that IDRC prefers an integrated gender component for research proposals submitted to it for funding.  A few respondents reported that the lack of uptake of gender focussed research makes much development work unsustainable. It was added that if research examines men and women's issues, focuses on equal participation and projects that are approved with a good gender focus would be seen as able to reach equity. Beyond the collection of gender-desegregated data, researchers must ask the questions:  Why are local gender dynamics as they are andwhat are the implications of the gender divisions of labour, resources and benefits of a particular urban agriculture system.  Many researchers shared their concern that women are still overdoing various work related to urban agriculture which they should not have to do if gender issues are looked at in the process of research problematic. 

Networking, Publication and Dissemination of Information 

Zimbabwe 

The Home Economics Association in Epworth, Africa 2000 Network of UNDP, ZIMPRO and ZERO in Zimbabwe, all of whom are concentrating on various components of urban agriculture, have shown interest in gender research capacity-building in urban agriculture through accessing information to resource materials. Urban agriculture researchers and academics at the FSC in Zimbabwe and Department of Agriculture and Economics at the University of Zimbabwe conducted research studies to show evidence of the linkages between Economics of Structural Adjustment Policy (ESAP) and gender dimensions of urban cultivation. The organizations emphasized that publications and dissemination of research results within their own country help to develop network among the researchers and dissemination of research results generate good practice in urban agriculture. 

High printing, copying  and postage costs were identified as main obstacles of publishing and dissemination of research information. 
 
Uganda 

MISR encourages the post graduate students to publish their dissertation on urban agriculture and related issues and provide institutional supports. Most of the research reports, dissertations and Masters thesis works are kept in the MISR library and are shared with regional institutes and libraries.  The UWONET and UWFCTL have their own libraries and established network with MISR,  NARO and CIAT for sharing information. 

Ghana 

University of Ghana reported their lack of materials for teaching gender studies.  It was mentioned that occasionally the faculties receive teaching materials on gender from the  supporting organizations of the course. Lack of information on gender specific literature which are published in overseas; access to borrow such materials and opportunities to buy them due to lack of reasonable fund were identified as barriers of producing good gender work.  Information on publishers to help researchers in publishing and distributing their research work is unavailable too. 

NGOs and academic institutions in Harare, Kampala and Accra asked whether the IDRC can assist them in providing such facilities and disseminating information to partner organisations. Universities in all the three countries highlighted the need for capacity building in gender research through effective networking and sharing of information and research materials. 

IV .  Conclusion 

Lessons Learned  

In providing a review of the changing agenda of research on women, gender and urban agriculture, this study has examined the case for a separate research agenda focussing on gender and urban agriculture.  In so doing, it has found that gender issues remain a marginal concern in urban agriculture research and practice. The study has also identified the critical importance of gender issues for research and action programmes which promote farmers inclusion in defining and developing urban agriculture and in government policy choices related to urban agriculture. 

Research on women, gender and urban agriculture should not occur in isolation.  A clear relationship exists between macro-economic development models and theoretical development paradigms, approaches to women in development, and urban agriculture research focussing on women.  As Caroline Moser argues, "in urban research the realm of the 'urban' has predominantly been defined in physical and spatial terms, linked to men's work, and dealing with such issues as transport, housing, land and infrastructure.  These are associated with 'hard' edged disciplines such as economics, planning, engineering, architecture, public administration and geography.  In contrast, the 'soft' social disciplines in which female researchers predominate, such as sociology, demography and to a certain extent, anthropology, cover issues such as health, education and the family which are more commonly dealt with as separate national level sectoral concerns" (Moser 1993). 

NGO capacity building in gender analysis in urban agriculture is not a remote area of inquiry. However, the issue has been ignored in some urban agriculture related literature.  As such, the methodology for this research project was a participatory learning process in which the author shared information and conducted interviews with NGOs, IDRC research partners, and academics and research institutes in Harare, Kampala and Accra.  The author shared the  outline of the process of gender mainstreaming in IDRC prepared by the Gender and Sustainable Development (GSD) unit of IDRC.  This helped the organizations express their own understanding and practice of gender research. 

The key objectives of the study were to identify organizations' understanding of and support for urban agriculture activities and access to their capacity, commitment and involvement in integrating gender into urban agriculture. The research process also established a network among the organizations that were visited which will help in developing a common approach to gender mainstreaming within the organizations and the programmes they provide for men and women farmers in the community.  The research found that in most cases the processes of mainstreaming gender in research work is at the introductory stage and mostly related to existing action research programmes rather than in the form of institutionalization. 
 
The term "urban agriculture" was new to some NGOs interviewed, although "farming by women" was identified as a common way of describing urban agriculture. Organizations which are involved in advocacy work on issues such as women's land rights and fair trade conditions for women are more aware of what gender means in development and how gender relates to urban agriculture programme delivery. Some organizations directly address urban agriculture but lack understanding on gender differences in the context of urban agriculture exists?. 

NGOs which are working directly on urban agriculture issues are more familiar with women's role in farming than defining gender roles and analysis of the service delivery of their respective organizations. The research findings show that many NGOs are working with the notion of women in development rather than gender and development. The term gender is not completely new to them but they do not have an adequate understanding of gender analysis as a social science methodology and the role constitution of men and women in society. IDRC research partner institutes are in the process of integrating gender into their research.  The Department of Women Studies (DWS) in Kampala and the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Harare have recently started gender analysis into their research. 

Women form the majority of urban cultivators in Kampala, Harare and Accra due to women's roles in sustaining family livelihoods in tropical urban environments. Cultivation in open land and zero-grazing livestock and poultry rearing contributes to household welfare in terms of the availability of maize grain and in some cases cash income from the sale of produce. 

The research has shown that IDRC research partners lack adequate expertise in gender analysis. Previous research work on urban agriculture remains limited and isolated and when it does exist, the research tends to be mostly gender blind. Gender-blindness prevents most researchers and policy-makers from appreciating the pivotal nature of gender relations in determining women's participation (Moser 1995). There is an emerging research interest in gender as a methodology among the research institutes but the scope of such research is currently limited. 'When women themselves and the gender roles and relations within which they are embedded are not integrated into the urban problematic, then they are neither integrated into mainstream urban policy nor are their needs met" (Chimidza in ZWRCN 1997). 

An Opportunity for Double-Loop Learning 

Double-loop learning refers to a learner-centred approach which offers opportunities to learn from each other in a participatory way. Urban-agriculture relatedresearch and policies usually do not mention gender or women. Research that does include gender analysis tends to be conducted by women and dominated by a ‘women in development' and ‘women in farming in the city' approach, rather than by gender analyses of urban agriculture processes. An effective network should be created between the Cities Feeding People  programme initiative (CFP PI) of IDRC and the NGOs, academic and research institutes which are directly and indirectly participating in researchon gender issues in urban agriculture. Such a participatory learning partnership network should be established to share gender sensitive research which is being developed or has already been conducted. This would also create opportunities for effective gender focussed policy interventions. The partner research institutes of CFP PI should offer opportunities for NGOs and other organizations to be actively involved in research formulation, field data collection and analysis of research data. This exposure will strengthen the integration of gender in development of methodology. This was recommended as an useful measure to support sustainable livelihoods, improved household economy and health and gender relations in urban agriculture projects. 

IDRC should select its research partner organizations which have institutional structures that allow members of the organizations to participate in the processes of gender mainstreaming, that have a strong institutional foundation and a research commitment to gender dimensions of urban agriculture. CFP PI of IDRC should set its goal as outlined in the Beijing Platform of Action, that NGOs, academics and research institutes including the members of civil society who possess good gender analytical skills should be actively involved in the early stages of research process. 
 

Appendix 1:  List of Organizations Visited in July 1997 

Harare, Zimbabwe 

1. Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU) 
Address:  P.O.Box 3755, Harare, Zimbabwe.  Reliance House First Floor, Speke Avenue, Takawira St.  Phone: 772859/60, 751192. 

2. Zimbabwe Women's Bureau  
Address:  Box CR 120, Cranborne.   43 Hillside Road, Hillside, Near Harare, Zimbabwe.  Phone: 747905/747809. 
 
3. Feminist Research Centre (FRC) 
Address:  P.O. Box A 856, Avondate, Harare, 7 Lezard Avenue, Milton Park, Harare.  Zimbabwe.  Phone 795503, 733632, 733642.  Fax 733645. 

4. South Africa Political Economy Series (SAPES Trust)  
Address:  P.O.Box MP 111, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe.  Phone: 727875. 
Fax:  732735 

5. Natural Farmers Network of Zimbabwe (NFN)  
Address:   Elsworth Avenue, Belgravia, Harare, Zimbabwe. 

6. Zimbabwe Environment Resource Organization (ZERO)  
Address: 158 5th Avenue.  Harare, Zimbabwe.  Phone: 732858/791333. 

7. NGO Africa 2000 Network  
Address:  60 Selous Avenue.  P.O.Box 4775, Harare, Zimbabwe.  Phone: 734420/703577.  Fax:  728695. 

8. Zimbabwe Home Economics Association, Epworth  
Address: Epworth High School, Epworth, Zimbabwe. 

9. Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN)  
Address:  288 Herbert Chitepo Avenue.  Harare, Zimbabwe. 

10. World Health Organization (WHO)  
Address: P.O.Box CY 348.  95 Park Lane, Causeway, Harare, Zimbabwe. 
Phone: 263-4-728991.  Fax: 728998. 

11.  UNDP/UNV Programme  
Address:  P.O.Box 4775, UNDP.  Harare, Zimbabwe.  Phone: 792681. 

12.  Environment and Development Activities-Zimbabwe (ENDA-Zimbabwe)  
Address:  1 Waterfield Road, Mount Pleasant, P.O.Box 3492,Harare, Zimbabwe. Phone/fax: 301156/301162/301024. 

13.  Institute of Development Studies  
Address:  University of Zimbabwe, Harare.  P.O.Box. MP 167. Harare, Zimbabwe.  Phone: 263-4-303211.  Fax: 263-4-303544. 

15. Department of Agriculture Economics and Extension 
Address:  University of Zimbabwe, Harare, P.O. Box MP 167.  Harare, Zimbabwe.  Phone: 263-4-303211.  Fax: 263-4-303544. 

Kampala, Uganda  

1.  International Centre for Tropical Agriculture, Uganda (CIAT)  
Address: P.O.Box 6247 Kampala, Uganda.  Phone: 256-41-567670.  Fax: 256-41-567 635. 

2. Church of the Province of Uganda  
Address:  P.O.Box 14123, Kampala, Uganda.  Phone: 256-41-270218. 

3. Uganda Women's Finance and Credit Trust Limited (UWFCTL)  
Address:  Plot 59 Buganda Road.  P.O.Box 6972.  Kampala, Uganda.  Phone: 256-41- 255146/7.  Fax: 256-41-255144. 

4. Action for Development (ACFODE)  
Address:  ACFODE House, Plot 623/624, BUKOTO.  P.O.Box 16729, Wandegeya, Kampala, Uganda. 

5. Uganda National Farmers Association  
Address:  Plot 76 Buganda road.  P.O.Box 25044.  Kampala, Uganda.  Phone: 230807.  Fax:  256-41-230748. 

6. Uganda Women's Network (UWONET)  
Address:  P.O.Box 6972.  Kampala, Uganda.  Phone: 256-41-255146/7.  Fax: 256-41- 255144. 

7. Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR)  
Address:  P.O.Box 16022, Kampala, Uganda.  Phone: 536830/7/8/9.  Fax: 256-41-532821. 

8. Department of Women's Studies 
Address:  Makerere University.  P.O. Box: 7062.  Kampala, Uganda.  Fax.: 256-41-531 286. 
 
9. Department of Soil Science 
Address:  Makerere University.  P.O. Box: 7062.  Kampala, Uganda.  Fax.: 256-41-531 286. 

10. CONCERN-Uganda  
Address:  P.O.Box 6599, Kampalal, Uganda.  Phone: 04-1-268 021, Fax:041-268 054 

11. YWCA-Uganda  
Address: P.O.Box 2871.  Kampala, Uganda.  Phone: 41-250988. 

Accra, Ghana 

1. Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA)  
Address:  P.O.Box 50, Achimota.  Phone: 233-021-401681/2/3.  Fax: 021-667681 

2. Centre for Community Studies, Action & Development (CENCOSAD) 
Address:  Suite 1-2, D856-3 Opeara Sq., Accra Central.  P.O.Box X22, James Town, Accra, Ghana.  Phone: 300-070/233-637.  Fax: 669060/662680/665960. 

3. May Day Rural Project (MDRP)  
Address:  P.O.Box 13923, Accra, Ghana. Phone: 228855.  Fax: 222742. 

4. National Board for Small-Scale Industries (NBSSI) 
Address:  P.O.Box M. 85.  Accra, Ghana.  Phone: 300111.  Fax: 669707 

5. CARE-Ghana  
Address:  P.O.Box C 2487, Cantonments, Accra,Ghana.  Phone: 222-021-226001/225920.  Fax: 233-021-226001. 

6. Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR)  
Address:  Department of Soil Science and Department of Geography, University of Ghana, Legon.  P.O.Box 25, Legon, Ghana.  Phone: 500374/501178-9.  Fax 233 - 21-502182. 

7. YWCA-Accra, Ghana  
Address: Greater Accra Region, Castle Road, P.O.Box 738, Accra, Ghana.  Phone: 220 567 or 221 944. 

8. CUSO-Ghana 
Address:  Sita House, 7 Koi St. Accra. Ghana.  Phone: 776 087. 
 

Appendix 2:  Questionnaire Guidelines 

Opening statement 

The name of the respondent(s) will not be recorded in the questionnaire and/or disclosed in the research report for the purpose of the confidentiality of the research. 

Name of the Organization 
Address 
Phone    Fax 
 

A Urban Agriculture 

How does the organization  define urban agriculture 

How does the organization define urban farmers 
 
1. Land 
 
Land ownership 
Type of land chosen 
Location 
Protection of land 

2. Crop/vegetable/animal farming  
 
-Type of livestock/poultry raised at household level 
-Knowledge of Species Diversity in urban farming 
-Pattern of crop production 
-Pattern of vegetable production 
-Knowledge of soil fertility measures 
-Knowledge on 

-Plant 
-Pest 
-Disease 

3. Land law and rights  

-Male and female farmers access to land pattern 
  -by inheritance 
  -direct purchase 
  -free land 
 
4. Modalities of access to land  

-Use of land 
-Land legitimacy 

5. Type of tenancy  

-Secure 
-Insecure 

6. Farmers access to 

-Main markets 
-Street markets 
 
7. Municipality imposed Bylaws and its effects of urban farmers  

-Sanctions for illegal farming 
-Road and transport tax 
-Sales tax to market owners 
-Access to credit 
-Micro credit facilities 
-Profit sharing at household level 
-Savings 

B Supports from Organizations 

1. Education and Training  

-Protection for urban farmers from urban bylaws 
-Protection against vandalism 
-Education on urban bylaws and other 
-Training on assertiveness,negotiation skill development 
-Training capacity building on hardware use (tools, pesticides, chemicals, compost/pesticide use) Training on software use (education, marketing, business management, accountancy) 
-Providing sales outlets 
-Arranging urban agriculture fare 

2. Institutional Support for Farmers  
 
-Farmers Union (women only and men only or mixed) 
-Farmers' Co-op 
-Farmers' Union 
-Farmers' Bank 

3. Extension Services  

-Family nutrition 
-Micro nutrient 
-Gender specific extent services 
-Micro-credit/Loan facilities 

4. Support through Social Services 
 
-Shelter services 
-Monitor child labour exploitation at household level urban farming 
-Supports to protect child labour 
-Education opportunities 
-Monitor time spent in farming and education 

5. NGO initiative in Micro to Macro Level Urban Agriculture Production Services  

-Healthy school meal deliver 
-Home made milk and milk produce supply 
-Food/vegetable preservation and packaging 
-Natural drying method 
-Other 

6. NGO roles in Empowering Urban Farmers 

-Decision making within household 
-Distribution of earning 
-Who gets benefited from the money earned 
-How household money is distributed 

C Research Capacities  

1. Research Capacities in Gender Analysis  

-Ratio of men and women researchers in NGOs with gender research capacity 
-Expertise with gender urban farming expertise 
-Types of research in urban agriculture (issue based, action research, baseline, case study) 
-Methodology (Participatory, Focus Group, KAP, Qualitative) 
-Institutional Expertise in gender analysis 
-Number of researchers 

2. Gender Mainstreaming in Urban Agriculture  

-NGO definition of gender mainstreaming -The process of mainstreaming 
-Explicitly written in organizational constitution 
-Existence of a gender committee 
-Terms of Reference on gender committee activities 
-In-house training facilities for gender analysis 
-Researchers exposure to gender workshops/training 
-Funding, budget for such support 

D. Monitoring and Evaluation 

1. Importance of Monitoring and Evaluation of Project Activities  

-Types of research work carried out 
-Farmers participatory monitoring and evaluation 
-Institutional evaluation (external and internal) 
-Frequency of evaluation 
-Monitoring activities 
-Expertise of extension services 

E. Dissemination of Research Information  

1 Methods and sources of Dissemination  

Appendix 3 
 

Appendix 4:  Understanding Gender in the Context of Urban Agriculture in Africa: A Literature Review 

Economic reforms in Africa have led to the removal of subsidies on food commodities and retrenchments in the formal employment sector (Mudimu 1996).  This has meant that growing crops on open and undeveloped spaces in African cities has become an important source of food security.  Recent literature has shown that women bear the brunt of the negative impacts of economic reform programmes and economic recession, with adverse consequences for their status as producers, home managers, mothers and community organisers (Ahonsi 1995). Urban agriculture is a livelihood strategy used mostly by women as a source of income, food and employment to improve family welfare. In many Sub-Saharan African countries, women have the primary responsibility for providing family subsistence. 

The large presence of women in urban cultivation and zero-grazing including other urban agriculture related activities such as floriculture and Aquaculture are either an indication of the limited employment opportunities outside the home or women's choice not to seek employment outside the home and in a distance place. Women tend to dominate urban cultivation because they are marginalised in other forms of employment in the formal sectors of urban economy.  In addition, men regard urban cultivation as part of women's role of producing food for home consumption. Men participate in urban cultivation to assist their spouses, but ina limited way.  In a case study in Harare, Zimbabwe, women still do the bulk of the work in terms of operations and time spent undertaking these operations (Siziba in Mudimu 1996). 

Due to the effects of Economic Structural Adjustment Policies (ESAP), a significant number of men have returned to off-farm urban agriculture activities such as, fruit and vegetable preservation, packaging, processing poultry meat and beef, from the construction and manufacturing sectors (Mudimu 1996). This inflow of men to urban agriculture activity balances the scale of women and men ratio in urban agriculture. This return to the agriculture sector can be attributed to reduced employment opportunities in the formal labour markets as a result of economic reform and slow economic growth. If the economy remains stagnant, more men may turn to urban agriculture as a survival strategy. This will intensify competition for land close to urban centres and may in future pose a threat to women's access to land. 

Lack of adequate decision making and control over production are serious problem for women farmers.  Although women are often responsible for all the planning, decisions about how to use the income generated from production are in the hands of the men.  The men even receive the praise for whatever is produced.  In Uganda, it is generally held that women make up over 70% of the agricultural work force.  Despite this disproportionate labour contribution with the agriculture sector, women are generally excluded in the planning and execution of agriculture- related policies.  For example, recent studies on women in Uganda found that women's access to agricultural extension services is almost nil (Tadria, Natukunda in Sebina-Zziwa 1995). 

Gender issues in inheritance, ownership, and access to land and property and authority of decision making for urban agriculture produce in Zimbabwe, Uganda and Ghana, and  disparities in extension services for crop and animal farming in urban agriculture and household economy and nutrition are discussed below. 

Gender and Land  

Women in Africa are viewed as responsible for providing food needs for children, husbands and relatives (Kanji 1995). As a result, women take up urban agriculture as a form of supplementing the household food supply.  A study on the gender dimensions of urban poverty in Zimbabwe indicated that about 50% of urban farmers had their children working on theland (Matshalaga 1997).  The study identified that children are likely be engaged in urban agriculture in both female and male-headed households and sometime children of relatives are kept in the family during school vacations to help in farming activities. This study also identified that most male-headed households reported that they faced accommodation problems of keeping hired labour or children of relatives. The majority of female-headed households prioritized problems related to food insecurityas well as clothing and accommodation problem. 

In Africa, where women's role in the production of their households' subsistence is significantly greater than that of men, their role is geared to the maintenance of the ecosystem in order to ensure their means of livelihood is sustained (Moyo in SAPES 1995).  This role is threatened when competing land uses reduces the area available for subsistence crop production. Women's access to land and property in this context is severely limited, whether it be land for housing, urban farming or gathering fuel or wild vegetables. (Footnote:  Literature selected for review land and gender issues in Africa, did not specify land as urban or rural land).  Traditions of patrilineal property inheritance limit and rights over land which has an impact on women's access to a secure place to live, their ability to produce subsistence crops and to generate income (Chimidza in ZWRCN 1995). 

Communal Land  

All farmers in communal areas encounter both shortage and infertility of land but women farmers suffer the most because of the responsibility for providing food for the family. In communal areas in Zimbabwe, where 61% of farmers are women, statistics show that production has increased since 1980 (ZWRCN 1996).  Zimbabwe Communal Land Act (No. 20/82) makes the Ministry of Local Government Rural and Urban Development responsible for the administration of land in communal and resettlement areas. Since the land is generally allocated to a man in his ancestral home area, a married woman can only have access to the land through her husband. Women who are not married are disadvantaged because even within their own home areas, preference is given to their brothers in theallocation of the land.  This describes discrimination laws while women farmers' roles and responsibilities are linked together. This also underlines that, regardless of their status, women have little or no access to communal land in their own right. 

In Ghana, both men and women, 'chiefs' and 'tendaanas' assert categorically that women do not own land either in their marital or natal ancestral home. In practice, women in Ghana enjoy extensive usufructuary rights on the husband's farm and old fallow lands in the community whether these belonged to the husband's family or not. This applies to communal lands for which no family ownership had yet been established (Manuh, Songsore and Mackenzie 1995). 

Women in Uganda are the main tillers of land but have no claim of ownership of the land or  the products of that land. This has implications for agricultural production and development especially in circumstances where land is required as collateral for small credit schemes for ruralfarmers. Since women farmers lack access to land and provide collateral, their production is restricted to unclaimed land, open space or government owned lands. The proportion of women-headed households is increasing and polygamous unions are as high as 23% in urban areas.  These conditions have increased women's financial responsibility in paying costs such as school fees and providing for children, especially food, pushing women to become involved in urban agriculture (Maxwell and Sebina-Zziwa 1990). 

Resettlement Land  

In resettlement schemes in Zimbabwe, land allocation is through the issuing of permits. The original government policy specifically states that both women and men by law qualify for permits in their own name (ZWRCN 1997). In practice, the ownership works differently for women than outlined in the law. The fact that the husband was given primary land-use right is sometimes translated to mean "the crops are his" and therefore "the money is his".  The wife, therefore, does not have an obvious right to the results of her own labour (Gaidzanwa in  SAFERE 1995). In Ghana, women's rights are mediated through men - either husbands, brothers, fathers or sons.  A married woman has the right to plant vegetables, Bambara beans and other less important crops on her husband's land.  She has exclusive picking rights of Shea nuts, Dawadawa fruit and other less known economic plants which have high market value, exportable, and can be processed and preserved to sell in high price during off-season.  She also has rights to fuelwood found in the farm (Manuh, Songsore and Mackenzie, 1995). 

In Uganda inheritance was found to be the commonest means through which the main piece of family land is acquired.  It case of Uganda, those parents who were able to donate an piece of land had inherited it from their own parents. 

Commercial Land  

In Zimbabwe, ownership to small-scale commercial farms is dependent on economic resources.  In a study in Zimbabwe, only 3% of 90 small-scale farms visited were reported as owned by females. Large-scale commercial lands are mostly owned by white male land owners with only 2% being owned by black male and female farmers (ZWRCN 1997). 

In Uganda, a study (Sebina-Zziwa 1995) showed that of the total sample of 118 women interviewed, 58% women owning commercial land had purchased it. They were able to buy it because the city or town council laws did not bar women from owning commercial land.  Traditionally,  in historical events such as, the cash crop phenomenon and land registration,  men took advantage of the situation to claim commercial land and registered their land by the names of thehead of household.  Because the municipalities were mainly concerned with commercial activities, tradition was not an issue, so women were able to buy land without hindrances. Another interesting aspect is the fact that in the same study (Sebina-Zizwa 1995) only 25% of 118 women were farmers. The rest were engaged in other activities.  One could argue that town plots are too small to engage in commercial farming, but cannot account for only a quarter of them doing any farming. Another study in Kampala (Sebina-Zziwa and Maxwell 1990) did prove that urban farming was crucial to the food security of urban households. Therefore, it can be concluded that women landowners are women who are engaged in other cash adventures other than farming. 

In Ghana, women working on commercial farm land face problems such as poor housing, lack of privacy, alcohol abuse and inter-personal conflict, a limited role in decision making, limited formal schooling, a lack of knowledge and limited skills, no written work contracts, low wages and exclusion from employment benefits and rights extended to male workers, although, data to quantify these observations was unavailable. However, with limited employment and income generating opportunities and no land, the women are left with little choice - they are forced to accept these circumstances (Songsore and McGranahan 1996). 

Implications of Land Ownership at Household Level  

A study in Zimbabwe (Mudimu 1996)showed that women  are responsible for household food production, purchases, storage, preparation and distribution.  A greater proportion of the female respondents than males in the study perceived ESAP as a cause of urban poverty.  When ahusband loses his job due to retrenchment, it is the wife who has to map out new urban survival strategies, which includes migration, renting property for living, arrangement for care of elderly in the family, children's education, access and cost of health care, transport cost, etc. Cooperative farming and community-level consumption are  practised in small scale in Uganda and Zimbabwe.  A group of zero-grazing farmers in Harare, mostly women, raise cows and goats, arrange fodder and take the responsibility from distributing milk and milk produce to the members, and the market. The same group of women have formed a community risk fund through a community-level consumption approach based on a portion of their profit. 

Gender and Extension Services in Urban Agriculture  

Formal agricultural extension services in urban agriculture are extremely limited but farmers do assist one another with ideas to increase output (ZIMPRO 1996).  In urban sectors where dwellers have access to agriculture extension services, women's involvement has also been limited or nil. Distance to training sites, lack of transportation and child care facilities, unfamiliar jargon, and male trainer bias in workshops and training programmes have kept women farmers from participating. 

In rural Sub-Saharan Africa, although women do more of the labour in smallholder farming than men, choose the seeds, and are increasingly making production decisions, extension information has been traditionally disseminated by male extension officers to male farmers (Due, 1996). This seems to be the case when it comes to training male and female urban agriculture farmers (ZWRCN 1996).  It has been documented that male extension agents in rural and peri-urban farming environment visit female farmers much less often than male farmers, as custom often restrains or reduces communication between sexes.  Additionally,  husbands often fail to share information from the extension agent with their wives (Due, 1996). In high density urban areas in Harare and Gweru in Zimbabwe there are a great number of female headed households who mostly live on urban agriculture and are occasionally labelled as "illegal farmers" by the City Council. These women farmers encounter the double discrimination of breaking the law and being women. It has been documented that female headed households which now account for almost 45% of smallholder farm households in high density areas in city of Harare, are particularly omitted from extension visits (Zimbabwe Women's Bureau 1996). 

Protein and energy contents of a forage are the major factors affecting optimum milk yield and it has become necessary to know the strategies to supplement the diet with concentrates to ensure optimal milk production.  Forage shortages lead to reduced milk yields, loss of live weight, long calving intervals and sometimes mortality of the animals.  Forage supply in the Kampala market is very much controlled by the male smallholder dairy farmers.  As a consequence, women face a problem of inadequate forage supply since the male diary farmers have more link with the traders and middlemen compare to women.  Moreover, male farmers tends to pay extra money to the traders for the control over forage supply. Male dairy farmers own the forage storage near the market which enables them to save transport cost. Women without or communication skills with the male traders end up in facing the consequences of forage shortage. This in turn, effects the poor households who supplement family income through milk sales and improve the nutritional status of the farming families (Ogwang, 1974 Muinga et al, 1992 in Kibiriji 1997). In Uganda, women urban dairy farmers were largely effected by forage supply problems. Distance, transport and inadequate information about training were identified as major hindrances of women's absence from attending a training on diet and feeding management for Ugandan diary farmers (Kibiriji 1997).  Training on the use of elephant grass and special hay diets under concentrate supplementation for crossbred lactating dairy cows would have doubled the production and boosted household economy.  Improved quality and quantity of feeds during dry seasons, improved milk yields during period of feed shortage, training women dairy farmers in forage management techniques and training on forage management and conservation technologies are few of the key areas that would ensure sustainable business in dairy farming (Kibiriji 1997). 

Various research confirms that more women than men possess traditional knowledge of animal farming (Mudimu, 1996).  The relative neglect in providing training from government and extension workers of the subsistence sector also suggests that the farmers, both men and women, rely largely on their traditional knowledge of crop and animal rearing which should be documented and legitimised. 

Household Economy and Nutrition in Urban Agriculture   

As domestic production and reproduction are almost entirely within the female domain, one might expect that women's time in agricultural production would be lower than that of men.  However data from Botswana, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Nigeria and Zambia showed that this is not the case (Kumar 1994 in IFPRI report 1995).  Added to the burden of agricultural production is the role of domestic production, including food preparation and the collecting of fodder for animal, fuelwood and water for household consumption. Women spend up to five hours per day collecting fuelwood and water and up to four hours per day preparing food (Quisumbing, Brown, Feldstein, Haddad and Pena 1995).  NGO annual reports in Ghana (YWCA 1995-96), Uganda (UWONET 1995) and Zimbabwe (NFN 1993) demonstrated that apart from farming and zero-grazing women in urban agriculture spend time in rainwater catchment and harvesting for small-scale farming, recycling and composting for soil fertility, food processing, preservation and packaging for marketing and knowledge-based training in  urban agriculture which includes permaculture and species diversity.  The reports indicated that this time spent is consideredas economic contribution to the family. In Uganda, a large number of women in urban areas are involved in dairy farming.  This is to supplement family income through milk sales, increase crop productivity by integrating animals into smallholder farming systems and improve family nutrition. 

Urban malnutrition is a manifestation of a larger syndrome - urban poverty is linked to gender  disparities in low incomes; food system deficiencies; socio-cultural practices; and environmental health are linked.  The impact of poor or negative economic growth is felt severely by low-income urban households. During the period of economic contraction, there is a high likelihood that income of urban men and women farmers will decline disproportionately, and that this decline will then be translated into reduced calorie intake by households. Research demonstrated that calorie consumption in many low-income urban households in African cities is already so low that any further decline in intake will have serious consequences for particularly vulnerable individuals and mostly to women and children (Kitts and Hatcher Roberts 1996).  Economic contraction also brings a high likelihood that some employment will switch from the formal to the informal labour market, affecting women farmers as income flows become more unstable.  Maintaining food security and household nutrition for such low-income households becomes crucial, and women farmers are at the forefront of this crisis. Not only is food consumption closely related to economic conditions, but so is health, particularly that of children and women. 

Little information is available from research on rural-urban differences in consumption of micronutrients. In Accra, research data indicated that the lower income households tends to meet a smaller amount of its energy and nutrient requirements than the higher income households and that micronutrients deficiencies are much more prevalent among lower income than higher income households. The difference in consumption was most marked in the case of vitamin A (Songsore and McGranahan 1996). 

Appendix 5:  Bibliography 

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Braun, von Joachim, John McComb, Ben K. Fred-Mensah and Rajul Pandya-Lorch, "Urban Food Insecurity and malnutrition in Developing Countries: Trends, Policies and Research Implications in IFPRI Report, 1993. 

Concern-Uganda, "Kampala Urban Community Development Programme: Annual Report April 1997.  Concern-Uganda, Kampala, Uganda, 1997. 

Due, J.M., F. Magayane and A.A. Temu "Gender Again-Views of Female Agricultural Extension Officers by Smallholder Farmers in Tanzania" in World Development, Vo. 25, Number 5, May 1, 1997. 

Environment and Development Activities (ENDA)-Zimbabwe, "Why urban agriculture?  The perspective of the practitioners in Harare", Proceedings of the Workshop on Urban Agriculture in Zimbabwe: Realities and Prospects. Model Training Centre, Harare, 27 February-2 March 1996. 

Gaidzanwa, Rudo, "Land and the Economic Empowerment of Women: A Gender Analysis" in The Gender Politics of Land, Vol.1 No.1 1995. SAFERE, Southern African Feminist Review 1995. 

Hofmeyr, Ilne-Mari, "Women on Farms: living and working in South Africa", National Women on Farms Programme Occasional Paper, December 1995. 

Hovorka, Alice, J, "Methodology for Gender Analysis in Urban Agriculture Research" (Draft), Cities Feeding People Programme Initiative, IDRC, June 1998. 

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Discussion Paper Briefs (Discussion Paper 44), IFPRI, WashingtonD.C. 20006, U.S.A.. 

Jiggins, Janice, Paul Maimgo and Mary Masona, "Breaking New Ground: Reaching Out to Women Farmers in Western Zambia" in Breaking New Ground, Africa, 1996. 

Kibirizi, Joly M.L. "Introducing Fodder Conservation and Labour Saving Technologies on Small holder Dairy Farms", Research proposal submitted to Gender and Sustainable Development Unit, IDRC, 1997. 

Kanji, Nazneen, "Gender, poverty and economic adjustment in Harare, Zimbabwe" in Environment and Urbanization: Urban poverty: characteristics, causes and consequences, Vol. 7 No. 1 April 1995 (International Institute of Environment and Development, London, UK 1995). 

Kitts, Jennifer and Janet Hatcher Roberts, "The Health Gap: Beyond Pregnancy and Reproduction", (International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada, 1996). 

Kuman, S., "Food Security in Cities" article in IFPRI Report, 1995. 

Lusthaus, C., Gary Anderson and Elaine Murphy, "Institutional Assessment: A Framework for Strengthening Organizational Capacity ofr IDRC's Research partners", (Focus Collection), IDRC, May 1995. 

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Matshalaga, Neddy R., "The Gender Dimensions of Urban Poverty: The case of Tafara", (Institute of Development Studies, University of Zimbabwe, March 1997). 

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Appendix 6:  Endnote 

The author's experience in community-based open and confined space management through crop and vegetable production, zero-grazing livestock, rainwater catchment and harvesting, micro drainage, waste water management and recycling and micro-credit for income generation helped to develop a community-managed urban agriculture project in a thriving city in Birmingham in the United Kingdom. A group of Asian women and girls of a voluntary organization worked with the author. A participatory researchprocess enabled the community to reduce local poverty.  The project enhanced community pride by encouraging confined space management, wastewater utilization and practice of indigenous knowledge for environmentally-friendly city farming. The Birmingham city council recognized the project. Financial supports were received from charitable organizations for urban agriculture related education and training facilities and seed money was allocated to initiate a pilot project.  This project had spin-off effect on the neighbouring Wards. Another Asian women's group started zero-grazing goat and small-scale goat milk project started a community-based micro- enterprise. These two organizations in Birmingham advocated for promotion of women and girl-children's education, organized campaign for waste recycling and organic compost projects. Both the organizations raised fund for healthy school meal delivery from organically home-grown vegetable and poultry products and generated income.  Proposals weregranted by charities to support a revolving loan-fund programme in order to enable households to start more urban agriculture related micro-enterprises. 
 

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