Levelling the Field: Improving Opportunities for Women Farmers in Africa

This new report seeks to focus international attention on the impediments that Africa’s women farmers face in feeding their families, increasing farm incomes and lifting the heavy burden of poverty in rural areas.  By combining information and backing it up with new surveys that allow for the disaggregation of results by gender, this report uncovers new evidence that explains some of the factors responsible for the low productivity of female-managed farms in Africa. The report profiles six countries that together account for more than 40% of sub-Saharan Africa’s population. It presents the clearest evidence to date about both the breadth and the depth of the gender gap in African agriculture.