Women and market garden production in Benin republic

Abstract

This paper highlights the status of women as well as their involvement in the activities related to market gardening in Benin. The data collected in this study come from two main sources. The first part of the data was collected from some vegetable producers cooperatives through semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Information gathering was conducted from north to south of Benin on nine different research sites with leaders of 54 producer associations through interviews. these groups were chosen in a reasoned way, ensuring that they are composed of both women and men. The second part of the data was obtained from the directions of the human resources departments of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries and completed by those obtained from the Ministry of Public Labor. The descriptive statistics were performed with the SPSS software. The discourse analysis was utilized as a method of analysis of all the information gathered from both producer groups that government institutions. This paper came out that women are involved in farmers associations as well as government institutions in connection with the agricultural sector. Although it is obvious, they are not sufficiently represented as men in these different entities and are not really involved in decision making processes. It is therefore imperative to bridge the gap between men and women in agriculture generally and market gardening especially. To this end, it is significant to develop policies and a regulatory framework to fight gender inequality. This will ensure equal access to resources, and the same support through agricultural programs and projects. In turn, this will improve women membership to farmers associations and their representativeness in government institutions.