ABSTRACT
The agricultural workload of women is substantially greater on low-income farms and in female-headed households where the resources for hiring labor are limited. A formal survey was undertaken in several Recommendation Domains in the Central Province to generate information on the resource base, constraints, cropping pattern, input usage, labor use pattern, income sources, and crop husbandry practices for female-headed households. Certain similarities are to be expected in male and female-headed households existing within the same agroecological zone and institutional infrastructure of input supply and marketing. Cash constraints were apparent on female-headed households in the lower percentages buying seed and fertilizer for their maize crops. Although maize is the dominant starch staple and cash crop in Zambia, the Central Province also has large acreages of sunflower, groundnuts, sorghum, and millet. Given the low population density in rural Zambia, land is readily available and used in a shifting cultivation pattern.
