GENDER, AGRICULTURE AND CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT AND VULNERABILITY OF RESOURCE
POOR FARMERS IN AFRICA

GENDER, AGRICULTURE AND CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT AND VULNERABILITY OF RESOURCE
POOR FARMERS IN AFRICA

N. ASSAN

Gender is a socio-economic variable which can be used to
analyze vulnerability and adaptive capacity of people against climate
change and variability in local communities in Africa. Due to climatic
change and variability, achieving sustainability inagriculture with
emphasis on satisfying basic human needs and improving people’s
standard of living through enhancing food security and reducing
poverty has been a challenge in Africa. This has been exacerbated by
the fact that rapid increase in human population has outpaced the
ability to produce sufficient food for the growing population. This
discussion attempt to link gender vulnerability to climate change
impact on resource poor peasant farmers in Africa. Climate change
and variability is now widely regarded as the most serious challenge
facing Africa, with consequences that go far beyond the effects on
the environment, hence affecting both men and women
indiscriminately. Despite the negative impact of climate change on
crop, livestock production and biodiversity conservation, poor
resources peasant famers are incentivized to engage in these
activities because of the wide spectrum of benefits accrued, such as
cash income, food, manure, draft power and hauling services, savings
and insurance, and social status and social capital. It is against this
background that crops and livestock species that remarkably possess
distinctive qualities enabling them to excel efficiently in the context
of the uncertainties of climatic variability need to be promoted to
reduce vulnerability at household level. The use of adaptive
genotypes such as the local animal and crop genetic resources may
sustain household production in the context of climate change. Small
grain crops (sorghum, millet, cow peas. pigeon peas etc) and small
stock (goats, sheep, poultry, etc) which are associated with women
are less likely to succumb to climate change than the large ruminants
which are owned by men. It is reasonably to suggest that the
exclusion – or lack of participation – of women in decision making
over biodiversity conservation and natural resource management
can have implications for conservation outcomes because of gender
role differences in natural resources utilization and conservation
based on indigenous knowledge. The review concludes that the
impact of climate change will have a graver effect on womenthan
men, due to their different specific socio economic roles and their
participation in different agricultural activities and biodiversity
conservation effort. The range of adaptive measures that might be
taken for local communities to ameliorate climate change effects
should take into account gender differentials, if they are to succeed.

Agricultural Advances

2014