in the past. Nevertheless, cultivated areas can be extended mostly through rainfed and small-scale irrigation. To have sustainable agricultural production, land tenancy should be secured; farmers should access and control their land.

1.3.1.2 Role of women in agriculture

In CWANA, agricultural work is mostly performed in smallscale households and often involves all family members. The work of women, however, is little reported and that of children is even more rarely noted. Analysis of the statistics on agriculture in CWANA suffers from the great diversity of situations that characterize male and female farm work. Among the factors that contribute to agriculture are production systems, some labor intensive; social and marital status, age, household composition and economic status, availability of male or female labor; mechanization of the work and farm size; and ethnic, religious, cultural and social norms. Despite these variations some common trends in CWANA can be detected. Involvement of a woman in agriculture may put strains on her domestic duties, including child rearing, housekeeping, cleaning, cooking, and fetching water and fuelwood. Women contribute 28 to 70% of agricultural labor. This can be from, among other things, the growing number of female-headed households because of male migration or war. Together with performing domestic and agricultural work of the household, in some countries these female farmers have started looking for off-farm work. Revenue from migrated relatives is often not sufficient for survival. In Syria, women, particularly

from lowincome households, constitute a large share of seasonal agricultural workers. The highest rates of participation are in the 15-24-year age bracket (Ramsis Farah, 1999). In other CWANA countries, women over 40 are often more involved in agriculture than younger ones. In Syria, 44% of women work for a wage, while 56% work as unpaid farm labor. If paid, women usually receive lower salaries than men. In Egypt and Yemen, women earn roughly two-thirds of men's wages. In Iran, they earn 46% of male salaries, while in Lebanon they earn 50% (FAO, 1995).

Women from poorer and smaller households are usually more involved in agriculture and are more likely to work off-farm for daily wages than those from richer households. Women mainly perform manual, time-consuming and labor-intensive work on the farm; mechanized work is generally a male task. Women are usually responsible for horticultural crops and agroprocessing. They are involved mainly in planting seeds or transplanting seedlings, harvesting, picking fruit and vegetables, and postharvest threshing, selecting and storing. Men mainly prepare the land, irrigate, spray, mechanically harvest and market the produce. Duties connected to livestock rearing differ by animal. Mainly, women take care of small livestock. Herding and marketing are generally male duties. Fishery and agroforestry are also mainly male tasks. In Egypt fisheries and fish marketing are primarily men's tasks, while more than half of the labor in fish processing is performed by women, who also contribute in making, maintaining and repairing nets (FAO, 1996). Despite their substantial agricultural work, women have