GENDER INEQUALITIES IN AGRICULTURE
PRODUCTIVITY IN NIGERIA: EFFECTS AND
POLICY RESPONSES
Emily Ikhide, Lulit M. Beyene, Ezra Umaru,
Fehintola Oyebola, Oluwasola Omoju

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Table of contents
• Context
• Literature Review
• Research objectives
• Methodology
• Data
• Simulations (impacts of gender gaps in the agriculture sector)
• Results: impacts of gender gaps in the agriculture sector
• Results: Impacts of policy options to close the gender productivity
gap
• Conclusion and recommendations

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Context
 Agriculture is a key sector of the
Nigerian economy
 Agriculture GDP is rising
 Contributes 21.1% of GDP in 2017
 The sector is critical for food security: 56.6% of
household expenditure is on food.
 Employs about 70% of the population of which women
are a major suppliers of labour
 However, there are some setbacks
 Contribution of the sector to GDP declined from 37.5% in
2002 to 21.1% in 2017
 The rate of growth of the sector fell from the peak of 24.6%
in 2006 to 11.3% in 2017

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Context (cont’d)
 One of the main characteristics of the
sector is the gender differences in
access to inputs
 A significant proportion of rural women
women engage in farming
 Women account for 60-79% of rural
labour force
But they lack access to basic agriculture
inputs and supports
They are five times less likely to own
land than men

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Existing studies
• Extent, causes and determinants of gender gap in the agriculture sector
 Gender gap in access to farm inputs (Oseni, et al, 2013)
 Gender gap in productivity levels (Mukasa and Salami, 2015)
 Impacts of policy measures to improve the productivity of women farmers an close the
gender gaps (Karamba & Winters, 2015; Ngoma, et al., 2021; Anderson, et al, 2021)
• Impacts of gender gap in the agriculture sector
Welfare and GDP effects of closing the gender gap (UN Entity for Gender equality and
the Empowerment of Women, et al, 2015)
None of the studies in the literature investigate the economy-wide impacts of the gender
gaps in productivity itself. This is the focus of our study.

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Research objectives
To assess the economy-wide impacts of gender gaps in productivity in
Nigeria’s agriculture sector
To evaluate the impacts of policy options to close the gender gaps under
the National Food Security Program (NFSP)

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Method
 Computable General Equilibrium (CGE)
Model
 Used to examine the comprehensive effects of
agriculture policy (Shikur, 2020)
 Employed an extended PEP-1-1 model
(Decaluwe, et al., 2013)
 Single country static model
 Adjustments made to the standard model
to accommodate for gender in agriculture
activities and labour market

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Data
 Nigeria’s Social Accounting Matrix (SAM)
 Nigeria’s latest SAM built in 2006….but the size and structure of the economy has change
 We used cross-entropy method (Lemelin, et al, 2013) to update the SAM to 2016 structure
 10 agriculture sectors
 Each of these agriculture sector is further disaggregated into male and female-managed sectors
 5 agents (rural households, urban households, firms, government, rest of the world)
 4 labour types in the agriculture sector (male/female family labour and hired labour)
 2 labour types in non-agriculture sector (male and female labour)
 The Living Standard Measurement Survey – Integrated Survey on Agriculture (ISA) NBS and World Bank
 Men and Women in Nigeria Report – National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)
 Rural Livelihood Information System (RULIS): Food and Agriculture Organisation
 Parameters/elasticities (Decaluwe, et al., 2001 and the literature)

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Simulation: Impact of gender
productivity gap
We set the scale parameter/productivity
(B_VA) of male farmers as a proportion
of that of female farmers as an
exogenous shock to the model

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Results: Impacts of gender productivity
gap
 Because of the gender productivity gap in
Nigeria’s agriculture
 Aggregate agricultural output is 6.6% lower,
except for cassava
 Agriculture exports reduces while imports
increase
 Agricultural prices are high, except for cassava
 Real GDP is 2.4% lower than it should be
 Consumer price index is 5.6% higher
 Note: Cassava is the only crop that women have
higher productivity than men.

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Policy options to close the gender
productivity gap
Based on the National Food Security Program (NFSP), the
government has proposed several policy options to close the
gender productivity gap.
These options form the three policy scenarios in these study
Scenario A: increase the stock of capital in agriculture sectors
managed by women
Scenario B: public investment in the agriculture sector

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Results: Impacts of the policy
options/scenarios
The three scenarios have varying
effects on output of male and
female farmers
Of all the three policy scenarios,
improving access to farm inputs
and capital for women farmers
(scenario A) had a
disproportionately higher impact
on boosting the production of
women farmers and would be
effective in closing the
productivity gap

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Results: Impacts of the policy
options/scenarios (cont’d)
Increasing capital stock in crop
sectors managed by women
(scenario A) had the positive effect
on household welfare relative to
the other two options
This is because of increase in the
income of households

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Results: Impacts of the policy
options/scenarios (cont’d)
Increasing capital stock in crop
sectors managed by women
(scenario A) has a positive effect
on real GDP relative to the other
two options
Real GDP will increase by 1.53%

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Conclusion and recommendations
 The gender productivity gap is a major challenge to agricultural output
 It also has a negative effect on real GDP, and food security
 In terms of policy options to close the gender productivity gap, increasing the
access of female farmers to critical farm inputs has the tendency of improving
output, closing the gender gap, increasing household welfare and promoting
economic growth
Nigerian policy makers need to promote policies to address the gender gap in
the agriculture sector
The government may implement policies that provide targeted supports to
women farmers, especially in terms of access to key farm inputs.

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