Back to contents

ENERGIA News Issue 2.2, May 1998

When Households Run out of Fuel: Responses of Rural Women in Malawi to Decreasing Fuelwood Availability

Inge D. Brouwer

In most African countries fuelwood and charcoal are the main sources of energy. Rural households depend mainly on fuelwood, which is for the most part used for cooking, but also for lighting and space heating. In most places trees used to be readily available and the end-use technologies, such as the three-stone fire, were inexpensive. Fuelwood was mainly collected from forests; from natural wood resources such as hedges, bushes, village or household wood lots and trees scattered in the agricultural areas. However, due to increasing land clearance for agriculture and to over-grazing of land by livestock, the fuelwood supplies have rapidly depleted. The high price of alternative energy sources, such as gas, oil and electricity, and their uncertain supply retards the transition from fuelwood to these sources. The depletion of the woodlands combined with the persistent dependency on fuelwood will eventually pose a serious problem for household energy provision.

Coping strategies for diminishing wood supplies

Rural households develop different strategies to cope with decreasing fuelwood availability. In most areas women are exclusively responsible for the collection of fuelwood. They are the first to face the problems of depletion from areas where they normally collect. They are the ones who will develop strategies to cope with shortages. The responses may include collection of fuelwood from further away, spending more time on collection, enlisting younger and older (female) household members and adjusting the weight of the bundle collected. Adaptations also occur in type of fuel used, by a switch to a fuel of an inferior quality, or to wood from fruit trees or by purchasing fuelwood. Women also may try to cut back on the amount of fuelwood used. The actual responses depend on individual decisions at household level and are dependent on the available labour, the existing labour division, household entitlement, and access to woodlands, as well as cultural practices.

Responses by Malawian rural women

A study into the consequences of fuelwood scarcity was carried out in Malawi, in southern Africa, from 1990 to 1992. Households, in four villages in the Ntcheu district (near the Mozambican border) were analysed in respect of their collection strategies. The villages were situated at distances from woodland, which varied from less than 1.5 kilometres to more than 6 kilometres. In the study area, women were responsible for the fuelwood collection, assisted by young girls and older female household members. Men did not share in fuelwood collection but occasionally cut down trees, usually for building purposes. On average, women spent 6-10 hours per week collecting fuelwood. Comparison of the villages revealed that with an increasing distance to woodlands, women initially collected from further away, spending more time on collection. However, when the distance to the woodlands increased to a certain level, women returned to other, nearer places, thus using less time but switching to fuelwood of an inferior quality such as twigs. Furthermore, women from households within the same village used strategies that differed in collection distance and frequency. The choice of distance and frequency determined the amount of time spent on collection, type of fuel used and amount of fuelwood collected. Those women collecting from further away or more frequently, spent most time in collection and were able to collect large amounts of good quality wood. The women collecting nearby and less frequently, spent less time on collection, but collected the least amount of wood and more often used twigs which are considered inferior (Table 1). The three outcomes of these strategies (total time spent on collection, total amount of fuelwood collected and type of fuel used) were highly interdependent. Women who are able to spend more time on collection are the ones who collect enough fuelwood of high quality. In contrast, those that do not have enough time available will economise on the use of wood and will use wood of a lower quality. This indicates that each strategy has its own costs, either in terms of time (and energy) of women or in terms of quantity and quality of fuel.

The availability of female labour in the household appeared to play an important role in the strategies developed. The households collecting furthest away and most frequently were larger in size, with more female adults (Table 2). Apparently, in such households, more (female) members take part in collecting fuelwood and the younger and older female household members provide part of this extra effort. In contrast, women in smaller households have little opportunity to share production and reproduction duties. The ensuing time constraints will keep them from spending time in collection and this may result in quite a low level of fuelwood consumption even in situations where fuelwood is available in abundance.

Table 1: Average time spent on collection and average total wood collected using different fuel collection strategies

The impacts of coping strategies

The impacts of the strategies as they have evolved (increase in collection time, use of inferior fuels and/or economising on fuel use) affect women in different ways. The impact of increased time spent on fuel collection appeared to be seasonal and dependent on other labour constraints. In the post-harvest season, a period with moderate-to-low labour demands in agricultural fieldwork, the time spent on fuel collection was at the expense of time spent on resting and food processing. In the rainy season, when agricultural fieldwork consumes most of the women's labour, collection time caused an additional reduction in time spent on other activities such as food preparation and food purchase. Women gave priority to food production, and labour inputs in agriculture were never reduced. Women did not omit activities, but spent more hours working, or received more help from others during collection days, indicating that women are just busier at those times. The increase in wood collection at the expense of resting may imply an increase in food energy requirements of women. The reduction in time spent on food processing, food preparation and food purchase may affect household food availability.

The use of twigs prevented women from doing other household chores alongside cooking as twigs need close attention to maintain the fire. This suggests that there is a trade-off between time spent on fuelwood collection and the time that must be devoted to food preparation. Twigs are collected because they are readily available and minimise time spent on collection. On the other hand more time is spent on food preparation. (Table 3) Although the collection of good quality wood takes more time, it minimises the time spent on food preparation. Moreover, twigs cannot serve as fuel for dishes needing a long cooking time and these dishes are consequently dropped from the dietary pattern.

A decrease in fuel use is associated with a reduction in the intake of cooked cereals, by a decrease in snack eating or in the amount of cereals and of beans cooked. This effect is mainly visible in the post-harvest season, where fuelwood is a determinant of food intake. In the rainy season the intake of food is mainly determined by the relatively low food availability.

Conclusion

The results of the study clearly show that, under circumstances that can be considered as moderate in terms of fuelwood scarcity, decreasing fuelwood availability affects women's time and energy. However, the impact is highly dependent on factors emerging from problems other than fuelwood availability, such as food availability, labour availability and labour constraints.

Table 2: Socio-economic characteristics and fuel end-uses by fuel collection strategies, Ntcheu District, Malawi (expressed as a percentage)

Table 3: Time, and amount of fuel, needed for daily cooking with vegetable relish, using split wood or twigs

Dr Inge D. Brouwer carried out the research discussed in this article as part of her doctoral work at the Wageningen Agricultural University in The Netherlands. She is currently working for UNICEF in Ghana and can be contacted via:
Ms. Inge Brouwer, UNICEF, P.O Box 1098, Tamale, Ghana; Email veluw@africaonline.com.gh