Crop Choice, Drought and Gender: New Insights from Smallholders' Response to  Weather Shocks in Rural Uganda

Peter Agamile; Ralitza Dimova; Jennifer Golan

doi:10.1111/1477-9552.12427

Crop Choice, Drought and Gender: New Insights from Smallholders' Response to Weather Shocks in Rural Uganda

Peter Agamile, Ralitza Dimova, Jennifer Golan

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

4 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

We analyse gender differences in the response of smallholder farmers to droughts, taking the duration and severity of the event into account. Using a novel weather shock measure that combines spatial rainfall data with detailed cropping calendars, survey data from Uganda and standard econometric techniques, we find that adverse weather events provide an opportunity for women to enter the commercial crop market by allocating land from subsistence to income generating crops. This counterintuitive pattern is, in part, explained by the greater propensity of men to allocate time to non-agricultural activities in the event of weather shocks.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	829-856
Number of pages	28
Journal	Journal of Agricultural Economics
Volume	72
Issue number	3
Early online date	10 Feb 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-9552.12427
Publication status	Published - 30 Sept 2021

Keywords

Crop choices
gender
land allocation
smallholder farmers
sub-Saharan Africa
weather shocks

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Economics and Econometrics
Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous)

Access to Document

10.1111/1477-9552.12427Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Crop Choice, Drought and Gender: New Insights from Smallholders' Response to Weather Shocks in Rural Uganda",

abstract = "We analyse gender differences in the response of smallholder farmers to droughts, taking the duration and severity of the event into account. Using a novel weather shock measure that combines spatial rainfall data with detailed cropping calendars, survey data from Uganda and standard econometric techniques, we find that adverse weather events provide an opportunity for women to enter the commercial crop market by allocating land from subsistence to income generating crops. This counterintuitive pattern is, in part, explained by the greater propensity of men to allocate time to non-agricultural activities in the event of weather shocks.",

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