Abstract:
Access to agricultural resources is a major issue in the development discourse. Despite the
significant roles both men and women play in agriculture in many developing countries, they
continue to have differential access to agricultural resources. This research therefore, studied
the relationship between gender and access to agricultural resources in the Sudan and Guinea
savannah ecological zones in Ghana. Primary data were gathered using questionnaires
administrated to a sample of 200 farmers disaggregated into males and females. In order to
ensure better representation random sampling was adopted in the study. A district each was
selected using randomization from each ecological zone resulting in picking Nadowli and
West Gonja Districts as the study area. The study found out that both men and women have
more access to labour, improved seeds, fertilizer, insecticides, herbicides, credit, agricultural
information through radio, television and Agricultural Extension Agents in the Sudan than in
the Guinea savannah zone. Also the men in the 2 zones have more access to family land
followed by skin land. However, a wide disparity exists in access to skin land in the Guinea
Savannah ecological zone as 28% of males as compared to 3% of females have access to skin
land. Also men have more access to labour, improved seeds, fertilizer, insecticides,
agricultural information through television and agricultural extension agents. Women on the
other hand have more access to herbicides, credit and agricultural information through radio.
There was equal accessibility in terms of breeding stocks and low accessibility in access to
agricultural information through mobile phone and input suppliers. There is a relationship
between gender and access to labour for farming and agricultural information. In addition
farmers faced challenges such as high cost of inputs, labour, transportation, land insecurity,
mortality, and morbidity of breeding stocks and poor or lack of access to credit. The study
recommends that the wide disparity in access to skin land by both sexes should be addressed
through land and legal reforms.
