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Agriculture in low- and middle-income countries faces considerable challenges, ranging from increased food demand to climate change impacts, with rapidly evolving scope and complexity. At the same time, the opportunities to address these challenges are significant, which brings optimism that efforts in agricultural research can succeed. One major barrier, however, threatens to inhibit the impacts of agricultural research: the low level of gender equity in low- and middle-income countries. This is problematic on many levels and across entire crop and livestock value chains, all the way to landscape management. ContentsForewordGender dimensions of formal and informal land tenure systems in South Asia and sub--Saharan Africa by Srilata Sircar and Agnes Andersson-DjurfeldtWomen and food production in multifunctional landscapes by Lisa Westholm and Madelene OstwaldGender and sustainable intensification practises in smallholder crop production by Johanna Wetterlind, Jonna Wiklund and Håkan MarstorpGender research in relation to livestock production by Sofia Boqvist, Sofia Förster, Daovy Kongmanila, Maria Nassuna-Musoke and Ulf MagnussonConcluding remarks and future research needs

The following report reviews the literature on land tenure systems from a gender perspective in five countries in sub-Saharan Africa and three countries in South Asia that are experiencing falling farm sizes and rising population pressure on land. The countries in question are Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Madagascar, India, Nepal and Bangladesh. We use data from the FAOs Gender and Land Rights Database and review the academic literature on land tenure systems and land reforms from a gender perspective. There is ample evidence of discrimination against women both in inheritance law as well as everyday practices of ownership, control, and access to land. Even in cases where progressive reforms have been implemented, women’s right to land remains fettered to their relationship with male relatives. Gender norms pertaining to marriage, and social beliefs and values derived from patriarchal mindsets pose structural barriers to women’s landownership. The presence of personal law codes (specific to each religious community in the case of South Asia) and the upholding in practice of customary law in the case of most of the African countries covered by the study, are the key structural barriers to equal inheritance rights and/or land tenure rights for women. However, this is a politically charged issue and cannot be approached from a purely policy-driven perspective. Therefore, we must turn our attention to the other structural barriers, within society and everyday practice.

This report aims to give an overview of the agricultural policies in place in Sub-Saharan Africa, based on a review of key regional and national policy documents, with a special focus on the four African countries that have been identified as focus countries for Theme 1 of AgriFose2030: Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia. The purpose of the report is twofold, on the one hand to compile information on agricultural policies at the regional and country level and on the other to document if and how such policies address the three target groups of AgriFose2030, namely smallholders, women and youth. While the pan-African ambitions with respect to the three cross-cutting areas of AgriFose2030 – sustainable intensification, gender and youth and commercialization - have increased since the signing of the Maputo Declaration, figures on public expenditure cast doubt on the national commitment to the CAADP process. Nonetheless, it is heartening to note that an early focus on smallholders in general, has been followed by a recognition of the importance of the role of women and youth in achieving the twin goals of commercialization and intensification. All of the country level policies documented in this report contain focus areas on smallholders, sustainable intensification and commercialization, while many also focus on both women and youth, but the variations of challenges at the national level need to be recognized.

This is a study of farm dynamics in eight African countries, drawing on a sample of more than 3000 farm households. It deals mainly with food crops and in detail with maize and makes a longitudinal analysis by systematically comparing current conditions with those obtaining when the farm was set up under its present management. From the study emerges an overall picture of inadequately exploited production potentials where farmers’ commercial energies are driven towards other food crops than grains, especially vegetables for urban markets. Commercial incentives in food grain production favour small groups of well-placed and usually male farmers, while, the lack of seed-fertiliser technology and commercial incentives means that smallholders devote their energies to other crops or to non-farm sources of income.

The Aids pandemic and structural adjustment policies (SAP) have had effects on lower income households in Zimbabwe which have been devastating and people have been required to adapt their livelihood strategies. Small towns meahnwhile are growing rapidly in Zimbabwe and mobility towards these towns may be connected with the changes being forged by SAP on the economic landscape. This study seeks to establish how the individual migrant uses mobility tot negotiate this landscape. This involves mobility directed towards small towns to access advantageous provisioning possibilities, and also the engagment in a multitude of family linkages from the small town to other places within the settlement system. Substantiated through a case study of Rusape, this study suggests that lower living costs, higher food security and a more accessible labour market may be attracting migrants from higher level urban centres. The role of the network of kin relations in mobility is important and migrants' networks over space cover both rural homes and urban areas. The access to networks, however, is being stratified under SAP and the ability to maintain linkages with relatives is declining, suggesting a rising vulnerability connected with the inability of leaving places and entering others.