The rural wome's assembly crop farming and rural women livelihoods in Lesotho

Abstract

This study focused on the contribution of Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA) Crop Farming and Rural Women Livelihoods in Lesotho. It highlights the Rural Women’s Assembly crop farming activities and how these activities improve the member’s household livelihoods security. The objectives were to investigate the extent to which crops selected for crop farming support improvements in food and nutrition security for all household members of the assembly; to establish accessibility of land to rural women members of the assembly; and to investigate the impact of crop farming on rural women household members livelihood security.The qualitative methods were utilised in this study in collection and analysis of data, and a case study approach was used in three villages under study in Koti-Sephola community council. The forty-five households were utilised from women who were the members of RWA. To obtain the information interviews and focus groups were carried out and the main findings are: overtime, women have dominated crop farming in Thabana- Morena to prevent poverty and therefore their participation improves their food security; Rural Women’s Farming crop production sustains rural women livelihoods at household level. However, these women still face challenges of lack of credit, climate variability, lack of roads and extensive training on crop farming. The study therefore recommends that women should have adequate access to productive resources and government support in order to increase crop farming amongst women in rural areas as livelihood strategy and the extension officers should train these women in marketing skills so that they should know which crops to grow depending on the market.