Gender and Access to Agricultural Resources by Smallholder Farmers in the Upper West Region of Ghana

Abstract

Men and women continue to have differential access to agricultural resources despite the seemingly equal roles they play in agriculture in many developing countries. The study sought to determine the relationship between gender and access to agricultural resources in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Simple random sampling technique was employed to select 400 farmers disaggregated into men and women from four districts in the region. Statistically significant differences were observed between gender and access to land, labour, inputs and radio, extension agents and input suppliers (p<0.05) while there was no significant difference between gender and access to credit (p>0.05) even though women also have more access to credit than men. It has been recommended that more aspects of the culture of the people be improved to pave way for more access to agricultural land in particular. Levels of credit support are very low in the region and financial institutions need to reduce some of the bottlenecks to allow easy access to credit. Also extension agents should endeavour to educate smallholders on how to access information through electronic platforms and also make them seek more information from input suppliers as the current situation demands.

Key words: Gender, Inputs, Credit, ICT.