The ‘Farmer Lens’: A Gender Blinder? Considering Farmer Diversity in Research and Policy on African Farmer-led Irrigation Development

Abstract

In research-policy debates on food and agriculture in Africa, the phenomenon of farmer-led irrigation development is now receiving wide attention. This can be seen as the adoption of the ‘farmer lens’ in research on the use and management of common pool land and water resources for irrigation. While it emancipates a farmer’s perspective in irrigation, we also observe that the farmer lens obscures attention for inequities and gender and social diversity in debates on African smallholder farming. Therefore, we reflect in this paper ex-post on survey data and field observations from two of our finalized research projects in Mozambique on farmer-led irrigation development, and we scrutinize the assumptions that we made in the design of these projects. Based on our reflections, we come to the conclusion that an emphasis on farmers’ agency in general indeed has the effect of a gender blinder, because it invokes an image of the ‘African farmer’ that is one-dimensional – agential but gender-less – and we suggest that a stronger focus in research on (irrigated) plot use, virilocality and flows of mobility could produce more accurate representations of inequities and gender and social diversity in irrigation. Such data, in turn, can critically inform the design of more grounded, human-oriented irrigation policies in Africa.