Analysis of gender roles in plantain production and commercialisation in the Ambam district

Abstract

This study entitled ‘‘Analysis of gender roles in plantain production and commercialisation in the Ambam district (South region Cameroon),’’ had as objective to determine the prevailing norms on inter and intra household and community dynamics on division of labour in plantain production and commercialisation on small farm holdings in the BBTD infected area. The field survey was conducted in three major plantain production and commercialisation villages in the Ambam district with the highest prevalence of the BBTD. The study was carried out using primary and secondary data collected from the months of October 2014 to April 2015 using the Harvard analytical Frame work framework, Focus group discussions, key informant interviews and semi-structured interviews using the snowball and purposive sampling procedures were used to obtain the data from 141 respondents. The major descriptive results reveal that: the sample was made of 46.1% of females and 53.9% of males of whom 31.9% of them were from Abang Minko’o, 18.44% from Nlono and 49.65% from Mengama. The age range of the respondents was from 15 to 76 years with the most active population falling with the age range 36-45 years.78.8% of these actors were married with an average of 9 persons per household. 6.4% of them had no formal education, 48.2% had secondary education and only 0.7% had attended university education. Two main types of labour were identifies, family and hired labour and 10 factors were identified which affected these labour types. The results of the logitic regression showed that 6 out of 10 of these factors of which were non significant had a positive effect on the choice of the type of labour used and an ODDs ratios greater than or equal to 1. These were; age, level of education, years of experience in plantain farming, farm size, yearly income from the sales of plantains and the main reason for cultivating plantains. The other 4 factors, gender, matrimonial status, household size and ownership of farm proceeds had a negative effect and ODDs ratios less than 1. Thus, to be able to solve the problem of labour shortage needed in the various farm activities farmers can reduce their farm sizes and the younger population who are more energetic be encourage to indulge in farm activities. Villages should be encouraged to further their education so as to better understand and implement BBTD containment measures.