Responsibility Without Authority as Evident in Gendered Labour and Food Provisioning in Urban Agriculture in Freetown, Sierra Leone

Abstract Urban agriculture plays a critical role in food provisioning and everyday survival in rapidly urbanising cities of sub-Saharan Africa. Yet the social and ethical conditions under which this food is produced remain insufficiently examined. This study investigates how gendered labour relations, decision-making, and access to resources shape urban vegetable production in post-conflict Freetown, Sierra Leone. Drawing on household surveys and semi-structured interviews with urban farming households, the study examines who performs agricultural labour, who exercises authority over production and income, and how responsibilities and benefits are distributed within households. The findings show that women contribute the majority of labour and time to vegetable production and bear primary responsibility for food preparation and household nutrition. However, this responsibility is not matched by secure access to land, credit, or institutional support. Instead, women’s labour sustains household food security under highly informal and precarious conditions, often involving children’s participation and heightened vulnerability. We argue that urban vegetable farming constitutes a paradoxical site of both survival and inequality. While it provides essential food and income, it simultaneously reproduces a persistent “responsibility–authority gap” in which women shoulder the moral and material burden of food provisioning without commensurate control or recognition. By foregrounding gendered power relations and care labour within urban food systems, this study contributes to debates on food justice, ethics, and the human values embedded in everyday agricultural practices in African cities.