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In Conversation with Ritu Verma: an interview with the author of Gender, Land, and Livelihoods in East Africa

2001-11-09

Photo caption: Author Ritu Verma (right) with her chief research assistant, Wycliff Ngoda.

For six months, Ritu Verma lived in Maragoli in Western Kenya, where she worked with nine women’s groups and numerous farmers as part of her research project on gender and soil fertility. Using a variety of research techniques, including photography and personal interviews, Ms Verma captured in rich detail the complexity of the women’s lives as they struggled to sustain their soils and their livelihoods in a difficult political-economic environment.

Ms Verma is now a postgraduate in anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, UK. She is a graduate of Carleton University’s Norman Patterson School of International Affairs, where she obtained her MA in International Development, and is a professional engineer who has worked on international development projects in both Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. From 1997 to 1999, she worked as a researcher and intern for the International Development Research Centre, in cooperation with the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Programme (UNESCO) in Nairobi, Kenya. 
 

You have changed fields quite dramatically, from an engineer to social scientist. Why did you switch?

I have always been very passionate about gender and environmental issues, even when I was a practising engineer. But I never had the tools that I needed to incorporate those issues into the projects I was working on. That’s why I left and decided to get a degree that has enabled me to follow my passion.

For me, gender analysis means trying to elucidate stories that just aren’t there. Case study after case study has shown that in sub-Saharan Africa, 80% of agriculture is undertaken by women...women are the farmers. But the literature has been so biased in the past, silencing women’s stories.  It also has a tendency of making invisible stories of men who are made vulnerable due to political-economic and social processes.

How did you capture these stories in the women’s groups you worked with?

There were some methods that I was experimenting with, such as photo appraisals where I gave farmers disposable cameras. I asked them to take pictures of farming and soil management But I also told them to feel free to take pictures of other things, good and bad,  that affected their ability to be farmers and sustainers of the soil.  People took pictures of their kids going to school in their uniforms, showing how meeting the cost of school fees was so critical in their lives.

It turned out to be a fantastic method to capture the farmers’ and women’s issues and also to use as an entry point for them to elaborate on issues that I might not have thought of myself. As an outsider, even if you spend a lot of time in a community, it’s really hard to get a grasp on the total complexity of farmers’ lives. For example, at one point, there were pictures of a funeral. When a woman’s husband dies, there are funeral costs, emotional distress and all kinds of issues centred on land tenure. I didn’t expect pictures of funerals to come out in the photographs.

[Through Farmers' Eyes: View the online slide show of photos taken by Maragoli women.]

You also collected personal narratives from some individuals.

Personal narratives allowed me to have a richer understanding of people’s lives and it gave the women an opportunity to describe in depth what was happening around a certain issue, especially when talking about change over time. I included excerpts of those narratives in the book.  It is just wonderful to have an issue brought to life by a farmer’s own words.

Is there a particular story that stands out for you?

There are so many!  For instance, there is a story about a widow who had heard that there was probably going to be an attempt to grab her land. In the past, when a woman`s husband died, the brother-in-law would "inherit" her, her children, and the land that she was farming. But men are no longer "inheriting" the widow for many different reasons, like AIDs and they are no longer "inheriting" the children because they would have to pay their school fees and other expenses. But men still invoke the custom of widow inheritance in order to grab land. So sometimes they drive a woman off a piece of land she has been farming for 20 or 30 years. That has an impact on sustainable farming and soil management because a lot of precious knowledge that has accumulated over time is lost.

Women will try to protect their rights to land in many ways. In Jane’s narrative [names have been changed to protect confidentiality], she describes all the different ways that she tried to defend her rights to that land. When you read it, it shows in a few paragraphs the complexity, the intricacies, and the constraints  in which these women are fighting for their very survival.

[In Jane’s words: read how she went to court to keep her land.]

The story shows some of the social complexities that can affect soil fertility. What other factors related to gender have an impact on soil management?

I think I have shown that there is a direct link between land security and soil management. When people know they have long-term security and tenure, they will invest in a piece of land. When they think they are not going to have that piece of land for the rest of their lives, they are not as open to investing in labour-intensive methods to manage the soil.

For example, right behind a house is a small microniche where the soil fertility is quite high and where people grow vegetables and bananas. Researchers have said that it`s fertile because of its proximity to the house; an incredible amount of rainwater flows off the roof and it’s really easy for people to dump inputs behind the house. But as I talked with farmers, I also realized that this microniche is so rich in soil fertility because of issues of security of land tenure. Women don`t own land per se but men do. Land is handed off from father to son. A woman will marry onto the compound and she will have rights to use that land. Eventually, a husband and wife will think about how they are going to subdivide that land among their sons and their daughter-in-laws. But a woman will keep that little microniche behind her house until the day she dies. So she has a long-term interest in ensuring that the plot remains fertile and will invest in labour-intensive soil fertility practices.

[Through Patroba's eyes: view her photo of the plot behind her house]

You found that earning money has become a big priority for women. How has this affected their farming practices?

Economic and political factors have made income generation incredibly critical to people’s survival.  Women and men have said that in the past, the men were the providers of income. But with high unemployment and so many men having left Maragoli to find work, women say that they are now "walking where men walk" and that means that they are engaging in income-generating activities as well as taking on what used to be some of men’s responsibilities.  There have been many cost-sharing policies introduced. In the past, school fees and health care costs were met mostly by the government. That’s been off-loaded onto local people and now they have to come up with the cash themselves. I have gone through an exercise with women’s groups in which I asked what were the most important issues to them. The ones that always got ranked at the very top were school fees, health care, access to cash, income generation, theft, purchasing food. Eventually, soil management and farming came up. Women simply don’t have the time to invest in labour-intensive soil management practices  because they spend most of their time trying to make ends meet.

[In Frederika's words: read how she struggles to take care of her family and household while tending her shamba]

What avenues can you see for change?

At the policy level, I think we have to revisit structural adjustment and retrenchment programs.  Most of the costs of these policies are borne on the shoulders of women. The women themselves  want cost-sharing eliminated; they are very much aware that it’s had an adverse effect on their lives.

I have also been talking to other scientists about dissemination of information. There’s so much valuable technical and social  research that’s undertaken and so little of it filters down to the grassroots. One idea is to set up a women’s centre or community centre in remote villages where people can find information on seeds, fertilizers, agroforestry techniques, and legal resources for defending their land.  Information is such a critical resource. 

More than two years after you finished your research, you returned to share your findings with the women you worked with in Maragoli. Why did  you go back?

It was critical for the research that I share the findings with the people who collaborated on the research, the farmers themselves. I set up group feedback sessions and this gave the women the opportunity to agree or disagree with the findings and to add things that were missing.

I also asked the women about future policy, future research, and future development interventions. I provided them some poster paper and markers and asked if they would consider drawing pictures of whatever they thought was critical. I didn’t limit it to questions of soil management and farming. The women were very creative and drew all kinds of interesting pictures of things they think they need in their lives -- livestock,  posho mills,  land, and crops.  I have these posters and I will be using them when I make presentations, trying to bring to life through images the farmers’ needs.

What was the women’s reaction to your visit?

They were both surprised and happy to see me, because researchers rarely go back to share findings with the people who actually collaborated in generating that research knowledge: the participants. One issue kept coming up over and over again. The women would always ask me whether I had brought them resources or money. I had to reiterate that this was research and there was no money involved. I was actually floored by how many times I was asked. It brought to light that the economic environment had worsened. And maybe people thought in the intervening time I had found some resources for them. Perhaps it is also an indication of how years of colonialism and development intervention have dropped resources into the community without question. I also found out that there were certain research initiatives in the community that were paying people to participate. All of this has set up a culture in which it is difficult to do research for the sake of research.

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