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  • Title: Women as food producers and suppliers in the twentieth century. The case of Zambia.
    Author: Muntemba S.
    Journal: Dev Dialogue; 1982; (1-2):29-50. PubMed ID: 12279571.
    Abstract:
    It is argued in this discussion that women's ability to produce and supply food has been deteriorating over time. Although this may have begun in precolonial times, particularly with the advent of merchant capital, 20th century economic and political developments have accelerated the process. This situation applies to peasant production as a whole, but discussion is limited to food production and supply. The discussion attempts to understand and discuss the position of women as food producers and suppliers within the framework of the social relations of production, distribution, and surplus appropriation. Land and labor issues have affected women's food production capabilities adversely, and their ability to supply food has been deteriorating. In those countries where their husbands are wage laborers, women have both fed themselves and their children and have supplemented their husbands' wages through food gifts and by maintaining them during their stay at home before the cycle begins again. Despite the fact that they could not adequately do so, men were obligated to start partially maintaining their families "back home" through cash remittances, but cash came at irregular intervals, or it was insufficient, mainly because of small wages. Some women have tried to increase their food supply capacities by going into seasonal wage labor, but often the wages are too low and the prices of food too high for this strategy to work. The time spent in wage labor could be better spent in their own production, provided the factors of production are favorable to them. The intensification of cash crop production has drawn land and labor away from food crops resulting in local food shortages. This process was realized earlier in West Africa when the colonial government started to import rice from China. Gradually, this became an acceptable food crop, but attempts to grow it in sufficient quantities have benefited only men. With the growing urban population rice became a viable marketable crop, to the disadvantage of sufficient food supplies for the producers themselves. The case of Zambia is presented, and it is concluded that the situation of women producers and of food production worsened at a pace responding to the nature of capitalist appropriation of land and labor and the intensification of cash crop production. Thus the phenomenon became more marked after 1945 when colonial states intensified cash crop production. The situation persisted after formal independence. Another Development must tackle the problem areas of land, labor, the sexual division of labor, the state, and men.
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