Participation of Women in Agricultural Production

Previously in Africa, women remained at home while their husbands and sons went out to the farm. But at home, however, they were not idle as they engaged in manual processing of food crops and other farm produce in addition to their housekeeping duties. With the advent of western education, industrialization and paid employment, men as well as women are drifted into the modern sector of the economy. And today, there are visible changes in the perception of women, principally because they have greater opportunities for education than before. They now constitute themselves into various societies or organizations and they are aggressively fighting for the liberalization of the role of women as opposed to restricting them to the home and home-based activities. In Nigeria today, women are excluded from certain occupational categories due to formal barriers and informal barriers to entry. Women play a very significant role in agricultural production in Nigeria. They are however accorded little attention. Inadequate information on the level of women participation in agriculture has helped to under estimate their importance in the economy and hence led to their neglect in policy issues.