Involvement of Women in Farm Decision-making and Adaptive Capacity to Extreme Events of Farming Households in Ligao City, Albay, Philippines

Abstract

This study examined the involvement of women in agricultural decision-making among farming households in Ligao City, Albay, Philippines and related this to enhancement or decline of their adaptive capacity to extreme weather events. Data were collected through a household survey in the three selected barangays representing coastal, lowland and upland communities. More than 50% of husbands solely made decisions on choice of food crops, cash crops, tree species, and farm production. This parallel findings in the Philippines showing male dominance in agricultural production. Nevertheless, women still participated in decision-making in a limited way as 13-16% of them singly decided on behalf of the household while 30-38% made decisions together with the husband. Following the Sustainable Livelihood Framework, an adaptive capacity index was developed for the households. The analysis revealed that 96.17% of the respondents had low (0.5), with all scores ranging from 0.0982 to 0.6171. Age and choice of trees species by husband positively influence adaptive capacity, while choice of cash crops by husband has negative relationship. Farm decision-making is gendered, and giving authority to the person with more capabilities to make effective decisions based on his/her relationship to this resource-based livelihood should be considered despite prevalent notion of the dominance of one gender