Constraints to Women Smallholder Farmers ’ Efforts in Ensuring Food Security at Household Level : A Case of Msowero Ward of Morogoro Region Tanzania

Women smallholder farmers (WSFs) play great roles in ensuring food security at household level as a poverty reduction strategy, but they are faced with a number of constraints that deprive them from fulfilling their potential as farmers, food producer, provider and entrepreneur. In evaluating the constraints on WSFs toward ensuring food security at household level as a poverty reduction strategy, this study focused on examining variables such as the women’s level of education, access to resources, technology, family size, as well as the agro-inputs. The results showed that 58% of respondents were food secured, while 42% of the respondents were food insecure. Also more than 60% of smallholder farmers in the study area are women, though their efforts and the mechanization of agriculture has marginalized them, and women are more considered as consumers than producers. Morever, WSFs have been less appreciated and continue to suffer from limited access to resources and opportunities especially in agriculture sector. A Logistic regression analysis showed that five out of eight variables analyzed were significant at the 5% level (p < 0.05), However, to ensure that research results are utilized and WSFs have access to new irrigation service technology, markets, education, capital, farms, as well as the agro inputs, the government and public and private development sector have to support and integrate short and long-term development initiatives and make sure that the initiatives are conceived and implemented with special consideration of women as smallholder farmers.


Introduction to the Problem
As the most challenging issues in the world, food security has been defined as existing when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life (FAO, 1996;Babatunde, Omotesho, & Sholotan, 2007).Most African countries, including Tanzania are primarily agrarian while smallholder farming predominate agriculture sector.The term smallholder farmers only refer to their limited resource endowment relative to other farmers in the sector (Dixon, Abur, & Watterbach, 2005).Usually smallholder farmers own small-based plots of land on which they grow subsistence crops and one or two cash crops relying almost exclusively on family labour (Todaro, 1989).Most of the smallholder farmers are women, which contribute to an average of more than 60% of the agricultural labour force in Tanzania (Ministry of agriculture food and cooperatives, 2012).They are the integral participants to the success of the agriculture sector (McCarney, 1991).Women smallholder farmers represent the majority of the rural poor population in developing countries (Rekha & Mary, 2008).As smallholder farmers, women play a great role in ensuring food is available at all the time in their households.They usually engage in subsistence farming to provide food for household consumption while men engage in cash or export crops.They dominate food production with labour contributions of 50-85% of the total agricultural labour (McCarney, 1991).Banana (2012) revealed that women's primary responsibility in Sub Saharan Africa is to feed the family and only after that they can engage in other income generating activities.
Despite the fact that women play a great role in ensuring food availability and accessibility at households, but they are faced with a number of significant barriers such as inequality in access to and control over inputs and resources such as land, labour, improved seeds, fertilizers, capital/credit and the like that could smooth their effort in agricultural production and processing.They also face barriers in rural cooperative groups, access to extension education and training, improved technology and marketing services, (FAO, 1998).Action Aid (2011) reported that women are important as food producers, and that the development efforts that target food and agriculture must recognize the unique roles and constraints that face women.Banana (2012) also revealed that even though women provide the majority of labour in agricultural production, but their access to and control over productive resources is greatly constrained due to inequalities constructed by patriarchal norms.
Women smallholder farmers (WSFs) in Tanzania are engaged in subsistence farming, they are using simple agricultural production inputs and most of the time they depend on unreliable climatic conditions.Despite the role of WSFs in ensuring food security in Tanzania, many areas including the study area use to experiencing seasonal food shortage and WSFs' role in the economy has often been underestimated.Their work in agriculture has long been invisible since they often are not recognized as productive farmers, and rarely receive appropriate farming inputs, extension services, and training or benefit from new agricultural research and technologies.Women often are expected to provide unpaid farm work, and bear a disproportionate burden of care and reproductive roles within the family and the community (World Bank, 2010).In 2009 the Tanzanian government in collaboration with public-private partners established the program called "Kilimo Kwanza" in Swahili means "Agriculture First".The program uses National Agricultural Input Voucher Scheme (NAIVS) for supporting farmers, especially smallholder farmers in bringing a green revolution and also helping farmers to shift from subsistence to commercial farming.It has been established after failure of a number of programs aimed to support farmers.Similar to the previous program, this one also lacks means that directly target women smallholder farmers from those that have historically targeted men.This paper aims to examine the constraints on women smallholder farmers' efforts in ensuring food security at the household level since we know that women are the key food producer and processor.They play a key role in food production and yet have less access to technology, inputs, education, labour, capital/credit than men do.The study also aims to identify women's potentials in ensuring food security and improving livelihoods at household level.The result will provide evidence to researchers, policy makers, the government and other development practitioners on the women potentials and constraints that hinder their efforts to be fulfilled.Then, appropriate measures must be taken into account for achieving food security and increasing food production at large.

Factors Contributing to Household Food Insecurity
Food production in many African countries is generally low since most of the farmers depend much on rain fed agriculture that is unpredictable and therefore food security is minimal (Sumaye, 1993;Mwaipopo, 2004).In countries like Tanzania, the main cause of food insecurity is climatic conditions due to the fact that rain-fed agricultural still dominate food production in the agricultural sector, but there are other factors such as insufficient supply and/or serious delays and uncertainty in the delivery of inputs for food production such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides to farmers, use of poor technology, inflations, farmers low level of income and many more.Food availability depends much on production, trade and stock holding.Shortfalls in food production and/or in food availability through trade can lead to food insecurity due to price rises or a breakdown in distribution channels.(Yambi, Kavishe, & Lorri, 1990;Ndiyo & Urassa, 2001) pointed out that farmers may suffer from poor crop yield due to drought, floods, or pests either individually, at the village, ward, or Districts level.The poor weather conditions and natural hazards such as drought and floods contribute to low agriculture production.Inability to adopt new technology and fail to afford modern farming methods that can speed up agro products in the country such as the use of tractors while cultivating, and applying agro inputs all affects food production hence food insecurity.In addition to that, most of women smallholder farmers (WSFs) as the main producers lack enough capital to purchase agro inputs and adoption of new technology of farming which has a great effect on agricultural yields.Socio-cultural factors like traditions/customs and norms, especially in the division of labour overload women who are the main food producer since they use to spend most of their time on domestic activities/household chores such as taking care of their families rather than food production.Women also lack education concerning the aspects that influence the distribution of food and consumption patterns of household.The majority of poor people in developing countries lives in rural area and they depend much on agriculture as a source of food as well as the source of income.Unfortunately, rural sectors which are based on agriculture have been neglected and instead urban sector has been given priority which focuses on industrialization, also the little attention which agriculture has received, has focused on creating conducive environment for middle and large scale than smallholder farmers.

Description of the Study Area
The study was conducted in Morogoro region at Msowero ward, the ward is found in the eastern part of Tanzania.Agriculture is the main economic activity and the area is suitable for agricultural food production for a variety of cash and food crops.The ward comprises of five villages and sample was selected from all five villages namely Msowero, Mvumi, Mambegwa, Makwambe and Mhowe.Women are the major food producer and income earners in ensuring food security, but they are somehow ignored in agricultural extension education and other opportunities for development.

Data Collection
The study has captured both types of data, primary and secondary data.Primary data were obtained from the field area, a structured interview supported by personal observations and discussion with key informants was used to collect primary data while secondary data were obtained from extension officer progressive reports, journals, and various documents from the village and ward office.A sample of 100 women smallholder farmers with an average of 20 respondents from each village was selected using multistage sampling technique, first stage was purposive sampling were the women smallholder farmer was selected, and then from there simple random sampling technique was used to select respondents.The respondents involved in the study include selected women smallholder farmers, both workers and non workers from all five villages in the study area, village chairpersons, Ward Executive Officer (WEO), Agriculture Extension Officer (AEO) as local government officers and Eastern Zone Irrigation and Technical Services Units (EZITSUs).

Data Analysis
The research employed descriptive and econometric techniques for analyzing data collected.Descriptive analysis was used to find out the frequencies, means, and minimum and maximum values with the help of SPSS 20 and MS-Excel.Food Security Index (Zi) was constructed and food security of each household was determined based on the food security line (daily calorie required).To set up food security status of women smallholder farmers, Food Security Index (Zi) was also formulated and rooted the food security status of each woman smallholder farmers based on the food security line using the Recommended Daily Calorie Required (RDCR) approach as used by Babatunde et al. (2007).Women smallholder farmers whose Daily Calorie Intake was the same or higher than Recommended Daily Calorie Required were considered food secure while those WSFs whose Daily Calorie Intake below the Recommended Daily Calorie required were considered food insecure.The Food Security Index (Zi) is specified as: Where by: Z i is the Food security status of i th households that takes 1 for food secured and 0 for food insecure households.Y i is the Daily per capita calorie intake of i th household.R is the recommended per capita daily calorie intake (2260 kcal).
The logistic regression model was used to establish the constraints on women smallholder farmers in ensuring food security at households as a function of a set of independent variables/ determinants.The study reveals that the socioeconomic status of WSFs households (Table 2) was generally low, and it has a direct impact on the food security status of the households.Most of the WSFs depend only on farming as their main source of income and food for consumption.They don't have other economic activities to boost up their earnings.In general, majority of WSFs in the study area was found to have small farm size, low level of education, large family size and were more likely to experience any kind of household food insecurity.Previous studies consistent with this says, variables related to socioeconomic status of households such as low level education, large family size and so on contribute to food insufficiency among the households (Lino, 1996;Sharif & Ang, 2001;Ferdoushi & Chamhuri, 2013).Women have a lower socioeconomic status, compared to their male counterparts, which limits their opportunities to access and participate in formal groups (Woldu, Tadesse, & Waller, 2013).The results in Table 3 for food security indices were based on the recommended daily calorie intake (R) set by FAO of 2260 kcal, it was observed that the average per capita calorie intake in the area was 2182kcal.Average per capita calorie intake for WSFs who are food secure were 3145 kcal with 1421 kcal for WSFs who are food insecure.The results also find out that only 39% of the population was able to meet the recommended per capita calorie intake throughout the year, 33% can meet the recommended calorie intake of 2260 kcal seasonally while 28% cannot either.Furthermore, 15.9% of WSFs who are food secure and 46.8% of WSFs who are food insecure have under five years' old children.The average household size was 6 persons, while for food insecure households were 9 persons and 5 persons for food secure households.A logistic regression model was performed to determine the constraints toward the WSFs effort in ensuring food security at household level.The results as presented below in Table 4 shows the estimated value of the coefficient of the model (B), Wald (χ 2 ), Sig., and Odds ratio (Exp B) of variables.

Results and Discussion
It showed that family size, access to resources such as land and capital and agro-inputs like pesticides when needed, access to modern technology like irrigation services and extension education/ training, participation in rural women's co-operative group in the area and the cost of food production were significant, indicating the constraints towards the WSF effort in ensuring food security at household level in the study area.

Family size:
The investigation finds out that this variable has a negative coefficient significant at the 5% level (p< 0.05), implying that an increase in family size, decreases the probability of the household being food secure, ceteris paribus, and hence it constrains the WSF effort towards ensuring food security at households.The results show that 26 out of 35 households with more than 5 people in their households do face food shortage during off harvest season; this is approximately equal to 74.3%, while 12 out of 39 households with between 3-5 people which approximately equal to 30.7% do face food shortage.The analysis reveals that for an additional family member in a given household in the area leads to decrease (by 17.4%) in the amount of calorie intake.Also the bigger the female-headed or unmarried women's families that also comprise of children and elders were reported to be at high risk of food insecurity compared to male-headed families (married women), except for families with energetic and active members the situation was different.Families with energetic and active members (excluding elders and children) were more advantageous as they can offer farm labour in the household and to other people to get income on a cash basis.This result is in line with Netsanet (2009) and Berhanu (2011) showed that, poverty in the female-headed households have a direct relationship with household size.According to the world report study conducted in Tanzania (World Bank, 2000;Setotaw, 2006), farm households with large family size and women-head had significantly lower levels of food security.
Access to resources such as Land and Capital: As far as the results are concerned, this variable was positive and statistically significant at the 5% level (p < 0.05).This implies that a percentage increase in access to resources such as land, capital increases the chance of the household being food secure by 3.448 times than the food insecure household, ceteris paribus.This means that the inability to access to resources such as land and capital constrain WSF effort towards ensuring food security at households.The study also finds out that the majority of smallholder farmers have few assets and they only depend on land as collateral for capital/credits.Moreover, even though discrimination in land and property rights based on sex or religion is prohibited by the Tanzanian constitution, but customary law limit women's rights, they are given access to family or communal land whereas their rights can be deprived in the course of divorce or widowhood.Consistent with that, Tegegne, (2012) finds out that in Ethiopia women's access to land was limited, and they depend upon their marital status, i.e., access to land was granted only through marriage since most of the women in the study were married and are entitled to their husband's land.Interviewed women said that they cannot apply for loans (capital) from banks or other financial institutions because of a number of obstacles like high interest rate, limited amount of loan that can be applied, collaterals barrier and short period for repaying the loans.Eriksen (2008) revealed that demand for collaterals and/or guarantors, high interest rate, tightness of the deadlines for repaying the loans, frequency of repayment schedules, the rigorous procedures for obtaining loans as well as restrictions on the amount of loan allowed are among obstacles on the way to credit services for women in Addis Ababa.

Access to agricultural inputs like seed, fertilizer and pesticides when needed:
The coefficient of agro-inputs like seeds, fertilizer, pesticides is also positive and significant at the 5% level (p< 0.05) which indicate that a percentage increase in access to agricultural inputs like seeds, fertilizers and pesticides to WSFs increases the probability of a household being food secure.WSFs efforts are constrained by their inability to access agricultural inputs like seed, fertilizer and pesticides when needed.This was consistent with the study from Kenya, which revealed that female headed households have much lower adoption rates for improved seeds and fertilizers.Credit constraints also limit the access of female-headed households to fertilizers in Benin and Malawi (Minot, Kherallah, & Berry, 2000).Ndiyo and Urassa (2001)  Cost of food production: This variable was significant at the 5% level (p < 0.05).It has a negative coefficient (-1.516) which implies that an increase in the cost of food production decreases the probability for the household to be food secure.The study revealed that WSFs in the study area has no or little access to credit and agriculture incentives which can help them to engage in sustainable agricultural practices, since without credit farmers cannot manage to buy inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, hire labour force and adopt improved technologies.High cost of food production especially in the farm inputs, technology, labour force, transport and changes in weather conditions for rain-fed agriculture, influence demand and supply for food products, and are still the key determinants of agricultural prices.WSFs are more affected with the high cost of production due to the fact that they rarely access credit and also most of them fall under the low socioeconomic status category in the study area, so they cannot afford farming expenses especially hiring labour force, new technology, inputs and so on.The cost of production, storage and distribution of food items is expected to be high which will have a negative impact on food security at household as well as national level (Ferdoushi & Chamhuri, 2013).

Other variables:
Food storage facilities: This variable has a positive coefficient that was significant at the 10% level (p < 0.1), which means that the use of poor food storage facilities increase the probability of being food insecure and vice versa.Poor food storage facilities and use of poor processing methods constrain WSFs efforts in ensuring food security at households, this is due to the fact that it leads to high post harvest losses of food and hence food insecurity.In line with this study Imonikebe (2010) pointed out that the provision of processing and storage facilities by the government could minimize post harvest losses and promote food security.WSFs plays a greater role in every stage of food production, so in order to reduce food waste women should be empowered so that they can access modernized food storage facilities and food processing methods.
Earning per month: WSFs households earning per month has a positive coefficient but was not significant.The result was against the expectation, this could be due to fact that most of the WSFs didn't know exactly what they earn and others didn't want to tell the truth about their earnings.Most of the WSFs in the study area rely on agriculture as their main income generating activity and food source, but they grow their crops in less than two hectares of land and they still practice a rudimentary farming approach which is time consuming and can lead to a lot of food losses.Normally WSFs in the study area depend on subsistence farming alone, they lack diversification alternatives/activities they lack opportunities, knowledge about techniques and/or innovations so as to maximize their income through farming and non-farm activities.This finding is consistent with Mwaipopo (2004) who find out that there are few other income generating options currently exist for women that can be carried out in the village, as compared to men who can work outside the village and migrate for work.
Rural co-operative group in the area: Coefficient for this variable was positive but not significant to the model.This result was contrary to the expectation, this could be due to the fact that there are few co-operative groups in the area, and they also lack proper information about the importance and benefits they can get from their participation in a rural co-operative group.Despite the fact that WSFs' participation in a rural co-operative group increases the probability of their household being food secure since it holds much potential for socially and economically poor farmers, few of them do participate.When WSFs' access to or participation to rural cooperative groups is restricted, their ability to make their views and opinions known to policy makers and development planners is restricted, which will obviously constrain WSFs to carry out their roles in agriculture and food security.Only 14% of the interviewed WSFs were members of the rural cooperative group in the study area, most of them were female household heads, more educated and unmarried women.In line with this a study Oxfam International (2013) and Thomas et al. (2006) found that older, wealthier, those received education, unmarried, female household heads are more likely to be members of agricultural cooperatives as compared to other women.Women smallholder farmers usually play multiple roles as farmers, entrepreneurs, food producers and providers and also they perform household chores.The analysis on the women's potential in ensuring food security at household level in Msowero ward has shown that though they play great roles in ensuring food security at all levels, many households headed by women were food insecure.Low purchasing power, lack of the employment, lack of access to resources, land, credits, inputs, extension education/ training and modern technology that could assist in food production were the main constraints toward their efforts.They need control and access to services that could make the implementation of their daily activities especially food production activities smoothly.They need financial support, easy access to credit that could assure them of better seeds, fertilizers, timely crop plantation, increase their yields and finally they can be able to sell their surplus at a better market price.Also the Government in collaboration with other development practitioners could help them to access irrigation services, to build food storage facilities for surplus production, establish food processing industries so as to add food value and reduce food waste, build better roads and transportation infrastructure to improve food distribution from farm to market, and find the market for their surplus.All these services are important to smallholder farmers in rural areas like Msowero ward because it will reduce barriers preventing smallholder farmers especially rural women in fulfilling their potential as food producers, farmers and/ or entrepreneurs that also hinder their efforts in ensuring food security at all levels.The results from the study area conclude that age of household heads, education level, family size, farm size and household income are the most important factors explaining determining women's potential in ensuring food security.

Conclusion and Recommendations
The constraints discussed in this paper are some of the key aspect that decelerates the progress of women smallholder farmers (WSFs) towards success.The study showed that even though WSFs play a great role in ensuring food security at households, they are faced with a number of constraints which restrain their efforts.
WSFs do participate in farming, supply a large percentage of the labour force (more that 80%), participate in local food processing activities, and household chores.But they're the more constrained group, since they lack access to potential services which could smooth their agricultural production activities, most of them are illiteracy which restrain their ability to demand for appropriate services when needed, also it act as a barrier for them to adopt new technologies which might help them to increase productivity hence improve food security for their households.WSFs as a key food producer not only needs access to agricultural production resources and supporting services, but also control over resources that could help them in food production process so that to abolish male-centered production systems at the expense of women's effort.Furthermore, having few WSFs that participate in rural co-operative groups in the area is in one way or another result of traditional practices, lack of information about the presence/benefits or importance and/or lack of motives to join the group.
For the government and development practitioners, they should consider these constraints to WSFs while making policies and developing various plans for development like "Kilimo Kwanza" agriculture first' for green revolution since most of the plans and programs are "Gender blind", they don't consider the importance of WSFs in bringing about changes to the agriculture sector in the Country.Therefore: 1) WSFs should be empowered so to increase their chances to access resources and various services for agriculture and food production.
2) They should be policies that might favour WSFs and enable them to compete with men in various fields especially the field of agriculture.
3) The WSFs illiteracy rate should be reduced, this is the serious issue which could help them to demand for their right in the case, adopt new technology when arise and participate in decision making.
4) Consideration of WSFs in various programs established should be taken seriously.
5) Though customary laws of Tanzania have the same status in the courts, something must be done by elders and local leaders so as it can give equal chance to both men and women in case of property inheritance.
However, it is important to be aware of the role played by women smallholder farmers and the constraints they encountered, subsequently to establish a number of policies and provide with assistance to assist them in ensuring food security and improving livelihoods at households and moreover, reducing the economic and social gap between men and women in all over the entire world.

Table 2 .
Socioeconomic status of WSFs households

Table 3 .
Summary of WSFs food security indices in the study area Tegegne (2012) that women smallholder farmers' access to agricultural inputs and technologies is constrained by their lack of access to credit and membership in rural organizations, gender-blind development programs and lack of attention to the needs of women farmers in research.Despite the fact that new established agricultural program in Tanzania called 'Kilimo Kwanza' means 'agricultural first' in Swahili targeted the area where rice farmers have access to irrigation, and maize and/or rice production regions, data from Zone Irrigation and Technical Services Units (ZITSUs) revealed that few of the WSFs benefits from irrigation services, most of the beneficiaries are men (62 women by 111 men in the study area).The results show a positive and significant coefficient at the 5% level (p < 0.05) of access to Modern technology and agricultural extension education/ training to WSFs.This implies that a percentage increase in access to modern technology and agricultural extension education/ training to WSFs (ceteris paribus) increases the probability of being food secure and hence reduce constrain toward their effort in ensuring food security at households.Mechanized farming not only enables efficient utilization of various inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, and use of water for irrigation, but also helps in improving yields and hence poverty alleviation.The majority of women smallholder farmer's are still practicing rudimentary farming, farming activities are done manually, which is time-consuming, since they can't afford to hire tractors/new technologies for food production (as to out 173 beneficiaries, only 62 are women while 111 are men).Furthermore, women are not only a key producer of food, but they also perform household chores, most of the time they do not have enough time to attend extension education/ training programs for existing/new technologies.A study byTegegne (2012)in Ethiopia revealed that 29.4%, of women had training on agricultural technologies, 50.3% had no training in agricultural technologies and 20.3% partially participate in training on agricultural technologies.This tends to constrain woman's farmers' ability to improve yield, earnings and efficiency in agriculture.

Table 4 .
Estimates of logistic regression of determinants constraints to WSFs in ensuring food security Women's potential in ensuring food security at household level