Unequal partners: associations between power, agency and benefits among women and men maize farmers in Nigeria

Abstract

New agricultural technologies such as improved maize varieties (IMVs) promise important benefits – increased incomes, lower workloads, and better food security – among others. When such technologies are introduced, they can denaturalize and expose gender norms and power relations because the adoption of such technologies inevitably requires women and men to renegotiate the rules of the game. This article asks: How do women negotiate power relations and their expression in gender norms to secure benefits from improved maize varieties (IMVs), and more broadly, to expand their decision-making space? We draw on data from four Nigerian case-studies, two from the North and two from the Southwest. The findings are analyzed through a conceptual framework utilizing five different concepts of power. Findings are remarkably similar across all sites. Women are constrained by powerful gender norms which privilege men's agency and which frown upon women's empowerment. There is limited evidence for change in some contexts through expansion in women's agency. The implications for maize research and development is that an improved understanding of the complex relational nature of empowerment is essential when introducing new agricultural technologies.