Rice production and post-harvest activities in Uganda: gender roles and perceptions

Wetland rice production is a key livelihood in rural African communities, contributing significantly to food security. It occurs in complex, gendered, and often poorly understood environments. Using Uganda as a case study, the grounded theory study examined gender roles in wetland rice production and post-harvest activities – whether separate, shared, or interdependent – what shapes these roles, and how they have evolved. Data were gathered through 24 focus groups (gender-segregated, 8 mixed-sex) with 243 farmers (130 men, 113 women) across 8 Eastern Ugandan villages, and 15 key informant interviews with millers and others. Tasks shaped role allocation. Women dominated repetitive, bending-intensive tasks such as weeding and transplanting. Men tended to perform more labor- and energy-intensive tasks such as slashing and plowing. Other influencing factors included technology, domestic obligations, health risks, compassion, skills, and temperament. Men assumed greater responsibility for tasks from harvesting through marketing. Multi-tiered or co-performed tasks, such as plowing and seedbed preparation, often led to role shifts. Overall, task division is shaped by more than gender norms or power dynamics, emerging instead from interacting sociocultural, material-technical, embodied, and relational factors. The study recommends shared roles to reduce gender disparities, boost efficiency, and support inclusive, adaptive rice production systems.