By Varaidzo Dongozi
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AlertNet) Â? Sylvia Chipakwe has been a successful subsistence farmer most of her life, surviving through tough times and bad weather with a flexible approach to production.
"My mother taught me both traditional methods and modern methods of farming, which has helped me to move with the unpredictable rainfall patterns which we have been experiencing over the years," says the 44-year-old, who farms in the Wedza communal land area, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Harare.
But like many women in Zimbabwe, Chipakwe does not own the land she farms. And as a result, she does have access to farm-owner meetings and other opportunities to participate in drafting policies to help Zimbabwe deal with climate change.
"The tragedy is that as we face more and agro-focused challenges, women's roles will be more pivotal, yet they continue to be sidelined," said Betty Nhachi, a founding member of Women in Sustainable Development, a newly formed organisation which seeks to educate women and promote their participation in sustainable development.
For centuries, women have been Africa's farmers and custodians of farming knowledge, their experience passed on from generation to generation.
So as the continent tries to adapt to climate change, women's voices belong at the forefront of working out techniques to adopt farming to changing conditions, experts say.
KNOWLEDGE NOT BEING PASSED ON
But in too many places Â? including Zimbabwe Â? women still lack access to the decision-making bodies that would allow them to pass on their expertise and help shape farming policy that works.
The consequences are enormous: Many communities rely almost completely on women's farming expertise for their sustenance, and a lack of proper policy could worsen hunger and leave millions more vulnerable to climate change threats and worsening environmental degradation.
Chipakwe has long experience dealing with changing conditions. For years she planted maize, her main cash crop, in mid-October. Rains fell consistently at the time and she regularly harvested a minimum of 50 tons of grain from the 10-hectare piece of family-owned land that she farms.
But as ever-more-persistent droughts take hold in Zimbabwe, she has changed her planting strategy, putting in seed later to match the later rain.
"I have learned to study the rains. This is a skill I learned from my mother, who was also taught by her mother to study the rain," she says.
When certain indigenous birds called shuramurove migrate to her area, and when she hears persistent calls from ground insects, she knows that it is time to prepare for planting as rain is near. This awareness, she said, has helped her learn when to plant at the right moment as conditions change.
Chipakwe also uses a rain gauge to measure the amount of rain before planting.
"If the rain gauge records more than 40 ml of rain over a period of three days, I know that there is enough moisture to plant," she says.
Because rain is becoming more irregular, she has begun to use irrigation on occasion to help keep harvests high, and has begun planting an assortment of short-season produce as well as maize to ensure she has a consistent income.
"We now complement our traditional crop which had been maize, with vegetables and this is ensuring that our income base of $15,000 per year does not dwindle," she says.
But her wealth of experience does not give Chipakwe automatic access to local decision making about farming. While Zimbabwe generally has made strides in addressing gender inequalities by instituting policies to promote the representation of women, in practice women largely remain passive participants and under represented, experts say.
While women in Zimbabwe do the bulk of the farming work and possess the bulk of farming knowledge, they remain in the periphery of decision-making processes on farms, a situation which leads to an under-utilisation of their knowledge, especially as the country grapples with falling production as a result of frequent droughts.
BROTHER MAKES FARM DECISIONS
Chipakwe, like most rural women farmers, does not own her farm. It is instead in her brother's name, though both of them inherited the land following their parents' death in 2008.
Under Zimbabwean inheritance law, sons and daughters are equal land heirs. But in practice, particularly in rural areas, only men are recognized as rightful heirs. In some areas, that has led to family disputes but in Chipakwe's region it is generally quietly accepted.
As a result, her brother Â? who does not work on the farm - is the one who represents it in agricultural meetings and who makes all the important decisions, such as when to sell cattle.
"It's sad that on important farming events like field days, where farmers share important information, our farm is represented by our brother who as a teacher does not understand the issues involved in farming," said Chipakwe, who is married and has one son.
In many countries around the world, women's ownership of land is limited, largely as a result of patriarchal inheritance customs which give men property rights and therefore control over land use and, subsequently, food production.
But women make up 51 percent of the agricultural labour force worldwide, and far more in the developing world. In sub-Saharan Africa, 80 percent of women who are employees or self employed work in agriculture.
The consequences of their lack of input into farming decisions could be dramatic. Depletion of natural resources and decreasing agricultural productivity may increase women's workloads and diminish their harvests, putting additional burdens on their health and time, experts say.
That in turn will further limit their time available to participate in decision making and in earning non-agricultural income that can help even out the financial burden in times of bad harvests, experts say.
Varaidzo Dongozi is a freelance writer based in Harare, Zimbabwe.
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