Gender Roles In Maize Production And Management Practices: The Case Of Ameya District Of South West Shoa Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

A study of assessing gender roles in maize production and management practices was conducted in Ameya district, South West Shoa Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia to access gender roles in maize production and management practices, to investigate gender issue in maize production and management practices, to analyze gender roles in maize production and management practices and to examine gender inequality in access to productive resources in maize production and management practices. A thesis followed mixed research design where data collection approaches were joined with qualitative and quantitative methods. Different data collection techniques like household survey, focus group discussion, key informant interview and personal observation were used. Purposive sampling was used to select district and two villages. Sample respondents of male and female households were selected from two villages by using stratified sampling. The data sources were both primary and secondary data. During the collection of primary data, triangulations of different methods were used to ensure the reliability and validity of the collected data. To enable analysis of data collected through questionnaire, Statistical Package for Social Sciences software (version 20) were used. Descriptive statistics like frequency, percentage, chi-square and cross tabulation were used and the result of the study were summarized by tables, figure, pie charts and bar chart to draw conclusions. The major gender issue in the areas, were unequal gender division of labor, access and control over resources and unequal intra household decision making. The contribution of female farmers in maize crop production and management practices in the study area is more significant than male farmers in manual weeding, transporting and storing. Respondents believe that female farmers play an equal role with male in seed sowing, harvesting and threshing. Male farmers have a great contribution only on land preparation and marketing. Female farmers believe they have limited access to agriculture inputs, extension services and training in the study area. Careful planning and follow up of agricultural extension services is crucial by district agricultural offices and development agent so as to bring improved household production and productivities were some of the recommendations made for improvement of farmers involved in maize production and management practices.