Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Rural Studies journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jrurstud Gender relations in changing agroforestry homegardens in rural Ethiopia Mersha Gebrehiwot a,b,* , Marine Elbakidze a,b , Gun Lidestav a,b a School for Forest Management, Faculty of Forest Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Forest-Landscape-Society Network, SE 73921 Skinnskatteberg, Sweden b Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SE-901 83 Umeå, Sweden ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Customary institutions Formal institutions Sidama zone Women rights ABSTRACT Agroforestry homegardens have been the dominant farming practice in the southern part of Ethiopia, delivering multiple products important for food security and livelihoods of rural households. This traditional farming is based on the labour force of both men and women in the household, however, with unequal rights to access and control over land and farm products. Since the 1990s the traditional agroforestry homegardens have been gradually changing from self-subsistence farming towards mainly commodity production of cash crops, dom- inantly khat. This study examines how the formal and customary institutions address the gender relations in the changing agroforestry homegardens. Based on a review of 22 legal documents, 24 key informant interviews, semi-structured interviews in 40 households and eight focus group discussions in the Sidama zone we identified that customary institutions restrict women's access to land, market and trading, decision-making process at the household and community levels. We conclude that while international and national legal documents recognize women's contribution, and their human/civil rights, in practice rural women are still disadvantaged. 1. Introduction Many scholars emphasize the importance of smallholder agriculture for broad based development efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa (e.g., Anderson et al., 2011; Gessesse, 2013). In Ethiopia, smallholder farming practices, including agroforestry homegardens, have been re- cognized as the basis for the national economic development (Adenew, 2004; Yegremew, 2006). However, few studies have problematized the gender relations in agroforestry homegardens, which typically is a small-scale agriculture in the southern part of Ethiopia, and involving women to a large extent (Tadesse, 2002, 2005). Agroforestry home- gardens are characterized by high diversity of annual and perennial crops, medicinal plants, vegetables, fruit trees and trees for wood, spatially integrated on a relatively small farm plot using multilayer structures. Livestock is also an integral component of this farming. This type of small-scale agriculture is based on traditional knowledge and experiences of local communities, gained over long period of time, and adapted to the local biophysical environment, and social-economic context (Tesfaye, 2013). The essential role of this traditional farming has been underlined by many scholars due to its continuous and sus- tainable supply of food ensuring food security at the household and rural community levels in the southern part of Ethiopia (Admasu and Struik, 2001, 2002; Almaz et al., 2002; Almaz and Niehof, 2004; Gessesse and Kinlund, 2008; Tadesse, 2002; Gebrehiwot et al., 2016; Tesfaye, 2005; Tesfaye et al., 2006; Kumar and Naira, 2004; Wiersum, 2004; Tesfaye 2005). The possibilities of harvesting multiple products (enset, maize, vegetables, fruits, roots, dairy products, coffee etc.) continuously all year around for household food and nutrition, and for getting permanent financial income from marketing farm products contribute to sustaining livelihoods of rural households even with re- latively small farm plots - less than a half of hectare. For example, Motuma et al. (2008) showed that the average size of homegardens that support the livelihood of smallholders in the south-central highlands of Ethiopia was 0.35, 0.27 and 0.12 hectare for rich, medium and poor households, respectively. The traditional agroforestry homegardens are based on the labour force of both men and women in the household, however, with unequal rights to access to the land and to control over farm products (Admasu and Struik, 2001, 2002; Tadesse, 2002; Almaz and Nieho, 2004). In general, only men have rights to the farmland and to control financial family resources (Howard, 2006; Kiptot and Franzel, 2011; Kiptot et al., 2014), while women are responsible for the production and processing of food. Since the 1990s the traditional agroforestry homegardens have been gradually changing from self-subsistence farming towards mainly commodity production of new cash crops' monocultures, dominantly khat (Catha edulis)(Admasu and Struik, 2001; Almaz and Nieho, 2004; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2018.05.009 Received 27 October 2017; Received in revised form 26 April 2018; Accepted 21 May 2018 * Corresponding author. School for Forest Management, Faculty of Forest Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Forest-Landscape-Society Network, SE 73921 Skinnskatteberg, Sweden. E-mail addresses: mersha.gebrehiwot@slu.se, mershagebrehiwot@gmail.com (M. Gebrehiwot), marine.elbakidze@slu.se (M. Elbakidze), gun.lidestav@slu.se (G. Lidestav). Journal of Rural Studies xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx 0743-0167/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Gebrehiwot, M., Journal of Rural Studies (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2018.05.009