Page 43 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

Mbu Daniel Tambi, Mah-Soh Glennice Fosah: Econometric Modelling of Women
Empowerment and Agricultural Production in Cameroon

The descriptive statistics also show that only about 7% of women use modern
agricultural equipment, with an average of 5% only for women who have access to
agricultural financing thus inhibiting their ability to be more productive. This relates
to the fact that most women farmers are expected to produce subsistence food crops,
to weed all crops, to cook and rear children having less time to allocate for the learning
and use of intensive methods. Added to this is the discrimination outside the
household, which limits their access to resources, modern equipment and information
some of which may be deeply embedded in social customs.

As concerns the socio economic status, about 74% of the women’s sample is non-poor
and only about 3% of these women use specialised seeds as opposed to an average of
about 5% for men. Age represents a proxy variable for the farming experience of farm
operators given farmers are highly dependent on their previous knowledge of farm
practices in cultivating different crops (Slathia, 2014). As such, experienced farmers
are expected to enhance the productivity of their holdings. However, it is not without
limit as older farmers may lack the required physical strength on the farm and also
lowers the probability of technology adoption. The average age of the women is 45
years which is higher than the average age of men of 40 years. Agricultural training
which is the process of acquiring specific skills to perform a job better and helps
people to become qualified and proficient in doing some jobs has an average value of
201.45, 213.9 and 197.16 for the full sample, women and men sample respectively.
This shows that the training has mostly benefitted the men more than women which
enhances the productive capability of farmers as well as eliminate the customs that
are contrary to growth such as traditional word-of mouth communication methods
(Abrha, 2015).

Fertilizer is known as an essential input for increasing crop production. The
descriptive statistics show that an average of 8.29 and 8.37 of fertilizer is being used
by both men and women respectively. There is thus a very little variation in the
amounts of fertilizer used by men and women on the farm. The amount of fertilizer
used could be affected by demand and supply factors (Nyako, 213). On the demand
side, farm households may not accept the profitability of fertilizer use; alternatively,
they may accept it as profitable but too risky in financial terms while on the supply
side, the high costs at the source by local manufacturers may limit the access to
fertilizer. In regards to the cost of fertilizers, it is seen that women spend just an
average of 3.89 as opposed to a mean of 10.71 by the men. This may be due to the
inability of female farmers to pay as well limited access to credit to finance fertilizer
purchases, and may also mean that most women farmers depend on their husbands to
acquire fertilizers for them thus limiting their ability to produce greater outputs.

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