Role of women
The participation of women in seaweed farming in WIO is reported to be
more or same as that of men(132, 133). For example, since its
introduction seaweed commercial farming in 1989 in Zanzibar Island women
have been the main producer of this important product. It is supported
by available data that in 1989 there were larger number of women farmers
than men farmers on both Unguja and Pemba (134). In this case the gender
data obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources,
Livestock and Fisheries (MANLF) in Zanzibar showed that the seaweed
industry is dominated by women than men as 78% of farmers in Zanzibar
were women and 90% of Tanzania mainland were women (93). The trend was
not different according to MANLF statistics of 2012, the number of women
farmers was 8094 on Unguja and 10,378 on Pemba, as compared with 605 and
4612 men respectively (93). This also led to the shift of some of
household system from patriarch to matriarch. This means some women as
they gain some stable income from seaweed farming become head of their
household unit (135). The trend is not different in some other countries
of WIO where seaweed farming takes place except for Mauritanius, where
there is low involvement of women as compared to that of men (133). This
is supported by the number of women who attended training sponsored by
Mauritius Research Council (MRC) conducted in Mauritius and Rodrigues.
In Mauritius 33% of the 40 participants were women and in Rodrigues,
there were 26 women, 43% of the total of 61 people (133). However, this
is not enough to justify those who participated in real farming as
training attendance may be done by the nomination of members by
respective organisation and cannot accommodate many people.
In Madagascar, commercial seaweed farming began in 1977 using the local
strain of kappaphycus striatus as means of improving cash income
for local communities. The project was supported by the European
Development fund and Food Manufacturing Cooperation (FMC USA). Although
there was no specific information available concerning the involvement
of women in seaweed farming in Madagascar, however, most projects
focused on women and their welfare. It was noted by a report from Blue
Ventures (2015), that 50% of the 700 farm workers who were integrating
seaweed and sea cucumber aquaculture operations in the WIO were women
(136).
Therefore, living along the coastal area women participation in seaweed
farming has benefit of increasing household income which allow increased
accessed to food and education as well as alleviating pressure to marine
biodiversity.