Empowering women farmers with land
By GETHSEMANE MWIZABI
IN the past, rent was associated with houses and shops unlike nowadays when people are subjected to rent all sorts of things to make a living.
And one prominent element that people are now renting is land for farming.
Just like Jesta Kitila who is a small-scale farmer. She lives in Ndola and she grows tomatoes and maize in Mkushi where she rents a five-hectare piece of land.
This harvest season, she has been running to and from Mkushi loading her tomatoes in open vans which take them to Masala market in Ndola where she sales each box of tomatoes at K25, 000.
Her business is somewhat slow, because of the fact that everyone seems to be selling tomatoes where she trades.
Being a widow with five children, Ms Kitila has one big request-land.
“I need land to do my farming well. Right now I rent land on someone else’s land,” she says.
She says if she were empowered with land resources she would do better farming. Her basic need confirm the fact that many Zambian Women need to be empowered with land to become self-sustainable.
Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) say there is need to empower women with land so as to increase productivity in Zambia.
WiLDAF deputy coordinator Gertrude Nkonde Kasanka says many women in Zambia; especially those in rural areas, were deprived of land resources.
She says women were instead working as labourers in agriculture fields and plantations.
“As women, we are naturally had working. We need resources, good schemes to keep us going,” she says.
Currently, the Government through the ministry of Lands has been exclusively allocating 30 per cent land to women as a deliberate policy to empower them.
They were also entitled to participate in the other 70 per cent. Minister of Land, Bradford Machila, recently said in the Press that the demand for 30 per cent land allocation to women was outstripping supply.
It was for this reason that the ministry was considering creating land banks to make more land available.
His observation was that demand for land on the line of rail had made it difficult and had contributed to double allocations arising from the ministry and resident councils who were agents.
If the land banks could work, it would be indeed a good relief for those without it especially the women folk.
WILDAF says the effort made by the Government to empower women with land was welcome but needs transparency so that deserving persons were empowered with land.
Ms Nkonde-Kasanka says currently, the Zambia food basket was not sustainable.
She argues that women are naturally farmers citing small gardens they put up at their backyards. She says if this passion is developed, there could be mass production.
“I think it’s a just cause. Women can make a difference towards agriculture,” says Miriam Chilufya, a small-scale farmer from Mkushi. Like Ms Kitila, she rents a portion of land in Masansa, Chief Shaibila’s area.
Her concern is that women in rural areas are deprived of land resources.
She says men owned huge portions of land in rural areas. She says this is difficult for women to be self-sustaining.
Ms Chilufya says Government should find a way of working with traditional leaders so that women are empowered with land.
“It’s really a huge challenge to have some land as women. There must be a way to open up land for development in rural areas,” she says.
Cultural expert and researcher, Mwape Mumbi, says there were several reasons why women had limited access to land resources.
He says traditionally in Zambian families, it was usually men who were in position of controlling access to critical resources like land.
Mr Mumbi says women suffer from insecurity in the tenure of customary land that they cultivate. This is especially the case for widows and divorced women.
He argues that women especially in rural areas need more information on the possibility of acquiring title deeds to their land.
“There is just need for more education and sensitisation,” he says.
This need for information on titling follows new Government policies, which intend to empower women with secure tenure. This is done in the context of the liberalised economy were land has market value, unlike in the past were the State controlled land and discouraged entrepreneurship and individualisation of customary tenure.
“It would be good to see a situation were more disadvantaged groups, especially women, have better access to land resources,” says the cultural expert and researcher.
It can only be assumed that only when women are empowered with land will poverty be a thing of the past.
Doing so will no doubt promote sustainable livelihood among rural households whose major means of sustenance is agricultural production. This assumption flows from the realisation that the empowerment of women with means to improve their incomes through changes in the laws and customs will ultimately improve families’ well being.
What is remarkable however, is that farmers like Ms Kitila and Ms Chilufya of Mkushi have devised creative ways of coping with food security, which includes borrowing land, hiring animals and implements from others; doing piecework to raise money to buy grain, and engaging in small-scale enterprises to raise cash with which to sustain themselves.
Ultimately, rural cultivators, and especially women, need more information about the changing land tenure legislation and situation.
In order to empower women farmers with secure title, the Government, women organisations and NGOs in general need to sensitise the women farmers. They need to provide them with necessary information with which to make informed decisions about their future.
What the ministry of Lands has embarked on in wanting to empower women is somewhat a step in the right direction.
It can only be hoped it would yield good results.
