In Nigeria and Yemen, for instance, agricultural extension workers now make extra efforts to reach women farmers, with the result that yields on small farmsteads are beginning to show some improvement. In the Philippines and Indonesia, more than 50 per cent of all agricultural extension workers are women. In addition, women are prepared, as men are not, to meet in groups of 15 to 20, so the land agent's time is more efficiently utilized. In Kenya, the government is now officially working with rural women's groups because they think more farmers can be reached this way, at half the cost.

This strategy has paid off. Women are now the principal participants in Kenya's National Soil Conservation Programme. Since the mid-1980s, women have terraced more than 360,000 small farms, or 40 per cent of the country's total. Rural collectives, run by women, are now getting bank loans and agricultural extension services tailored to their specific needs and interests.

Where women farmers have been given access to credit, better seeds, equipment and advice, yields have gone up and the land made more productive. At the small village of Brefet in the Gambia, a local women's organization called a "Kafo" initiated a project to desalinize 45 hectares of damaged agricultural land. After the land was rehabilitated, rice yields increased dramatically, making this poor village virtually self-sufficient in food.

In the Phewa Tal Watershed, near Pokhara in central Nepal, women are responsible for reforesting denuded slopes, greatly reducing soil erosion. Women also tend tree nurseries and have established family woodlots, reversing half a century of deforestation. A women's collective has even fenced off a 100 hectare plot where they cultivate special fodder grasses for their herds of goats and cattle. Any surplus is sold on the local market for cash income. Since women in these hill communities no longer have to spend up to 20 hours a week seeking fuelwood and fodder, some of their extra "free time" has gone into better land management, including the cultivation of vegetables and fruit.

In Mizhi County on China's windswept Loess Plateau, one of the most eroded landscapes on Earth, a women-led rehabilitation programme has reversed decades of non-sustainable agricultural practices that contributed to massive soil loss from wind and rain. Soils were saved by turning steep slopes over to permanent vegetation, terracing others and controlling gully erosion. Farmers were encouraged to replace annual crops with perennials, such as alfalfa, which holds the soil in place from year to year, and to diversify into small animal husbandry and fruit-growing. Since 1980, total food production in the region has risen by 70 per cent, despite the fact that the cultivated area has been halved.

The relationship between women and land is a complex one. In general, women in developing countries manage resources on three broad levels: as providers of food, fuel, fodder and water; as caretakers of their family's health by maintaining sanitary conditions around the house and by safely disposing of household wastes; and as conservationists by safeguarding forests, soils, water and grazing areas to ensure that tomorrow's needs can be met. Better education and health services (especially reproductive health and family planning) equip women to manage their environment instead of being victimized by it. These women are more likely to take advantage of opportunities for change.