South African Women's Access to Agricultural Extension Services: An Analysis of Barriers and Constraints

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse barriers and constraints to South African women's access to agricultural extension services. It is argued that women do most of the agricultural activities and are responsible for the provision of food and, thus, contribute to food security worldwide. They, however, face a lot of constraints in accessing agricultural extension services such as socio-cultural constraints, the reproductive burden, lack of access to credit facilities and their low literacy levels. This paper is a theoretical study based on the analysis of literature, to probe the constraints that women face in accessing agricultural extension services. This paper confirms that there are barriers such as socio-cultural, lack of access to credit, the challenge of women balancing paid and unpaid care work with farming and women's low literacy levels