Datasource:
Agricultural Household Survey
Period:
January 2024 - December 2024.
Agricultural households headed by women accounted for 25.7% of those engaged in any agricultural activity, compared with 74.3% headed by men. Agriculture serves as the main livelihood activity for 88.4 percent of agricultural households, with female headed households showing slightly higher dependence (89.5 percent) than their male counterparts (87.97 percent).
In terms of complementary livelihood strategies, daily labor emerges as the most common activity for both sexes, though it is more prevalent among women (63.4 percent) than men (53.2 percent).
Men are more likely to engage in salaried work, transport, or business ownership, while women rely heavily on social protection programs, particularly VUP Direct Transfers (14.2 percent versus 1.2 percent for men) and VUP Public Works. Most farmers are aged 31 to 64 years (58.4 percent) and have completed only primary education (68.1 percent), with women farmers facing significantly higher rates of no education (14.8 percent) compared to men (9.8 percent).
Regarding land access and utilization, land ownership is nearly universal for both male- and female-headed households at approximately 92 percent. However, male-headed households have substantially better access to land through rental arrangements (53.2 percent compared to 42.9 percent for female-headed households).
While both sexes report high levels of access to use household land (over 79 percent), men and women have comparable rights to sell, use land as loan guarantee, and bequeath it.
Notable gender gaps emerge in the use of agricultural inputs and practices, with male-headed households far more likely to adopt modern inputs. For instance, 69.7 percent of male-headed households use improved seeds compared to 50.1 percent of female headed ones, and 72.0 percent of men apply inorganic fertilizer versus 50.7 percent of women.
Agro-dealers serve as the primary source of inorganic fertilizer for both sexes (approximately 50 percent), though men rely more on NGOs (39.7 percent) while women are more likely to source from government or market channels.
Agricultural extension services reach 50.8 percent of household members overall, with men having a slightly higher participation rate (52.0 percent) than women (49.7 percent).