Question

Difficulty: HardInferential Comprehension and Deduction

Read the passage below carefully:

In the agrarian district of Ikole-Ekiti, smallholder cassava farmers long struggled with high post-harvest losses due to the rapid deterioration of harvested tubers within forty-eight hours. The recent installation of a community-owned, solar-powered flash-drying facility transformed local economic dynamics. Previously, farmers were forced to sell raw tubers immediately to itinerant middlemen at heavily discounted prices or risk complete spoilage. With the flash-dryer, tubers are processed into high-quality cassava flour on the day of harvest, extending shelf life to over twelve months and enabling direct supply to urban confectionery industries. However, while overall household incomes have risen by thirty percent, local processors report that women—who traditionally controlled manual gari processing and retained its revenues—now represent less than fifteen percent of the technical operators at the mechanized solar plant. Consequently, gender advocates emphasize that economic metrics alone fail to capture shifts in resource control within farming households.

Based on the passage above, evaluate whether the following statement is True or False: The introduction of mechanized cassava flash-drying inadvertently displaced women from their traditional role as primary financial beneficiaries of processing.

Answer: Answer

Answer

True
The statement is True because the passage demonstrates that while manual gari processing previously allowed women to retain revenues, the shift to mechanized flash-drying reduced female operational participation to under fifteen percent, shifting financial resource control away from them.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the historical economic status of women in cassava processing.
Women traditionally managed manual gari processing and directly retained the revenues generated from it.
Establishing the baseline role of women is necessary to determine if displacement occurred.
2
Analyze the impact of the mechanized solar flash-dryer on female involvement.
Women account for under fifteen percent of operators at the mechanized facility, prompting advocates to note a shift in household resource control.
Comparing traditional revenue retention with current operational control reveals the gender disparity introduced by mechanization.
3
Deduce the accuracy of the statement.
Because mechanization led to reduced direct female participation and control over processing revenues, the statement logically follows as True.
The conclusion synthesizes the text's implicit contrast between aggregate income growth and demographic resource reallocation.

Key Concept

Inferential Deduction of Socio-Economic Impact
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