This document discusses the importance of integrating a gender perspective into value chain analysis and development. It notes that as agriculture becomes more commercialized, women smallholder farmers may not benefit equally due to lower access to resources and social barriers. However, reducing gender disparities could significantly increase agricultural outputs and reduce hunger. Key issues to examine include men and women's differing access to assets, types of market participation, constraints faced, and patterns of income management. Addressing these intra-household gender dynamics is important for the success and equitable impacts of programs aiming to develop value chains and markets.

1. Gender and Value Chains
Jemimah Njuki
Poverty, Gender and Impact Group
International Livestock Research Institute

2. Why gender and value chains?
The agricultural landscape in the region is
changing
– Agriculture /livestock sector is
becoming more technologically
sophisticated, commercially oriented
and globally integrated
– There is evidence however that as it
gets more commercialised, smallholder
farmers, women, may not be able to
compete and benefit due to lower
access to resources, capital, capacity
and other social barriers
– There are tremendous opportunities
from these changes if gender equality is
integrated into programs /projects
aiming to take advantage of emerging
markets

3. Why gender and value chains?
Existing gender disparities in access to
resources, market participation and
capital accumulation
– Although about 70% of smallholder
farmers are women, they lack secure
rights to production resources (land,
labor, capital), lower educational levels
– Women are more likely to be ‘unserved’
by formal financial
– The extent of market participation
(especially in formal markets) by women
is lower than that of their male
counterparts. Women are more likely to
sell in informal markets
– Adoption rates for new technology
innovation among women is lower than
for men often making women less
competitive

4. Why gender and value chains?
The potential gains from reducing gender
disparities
• There is evidence that income under the
control of women is more likely to be used to
improve family welfare
– women spend upto 90% of their income
on their families, while men spend 30-
40%
– strengthening marital bargaining power
and "voice" within the household
decision-making
• If women had the same resources as men,
they could increase yields on their farms by
20-30%
– raise agricultural output by 2.5-4% and
reduce hungry people by 100-150 million

5. What are the Key Issues and Data
Needs?

6. 1. Men and Women’s Access to
Resources and Assets
Total • Women and assets: Although
domestic % of about 70% of smallholder
and livestock farmers are women, they lack
livestock to total secure rights to production
index index resources (land, labor,
Kenya Men 41.01 21.5 capital), lower educational
levels
Women 16.68 22.5
Joint 60.35 36
• Disaggregated asset and
Tanzania Men 41.80 46.6 resource ownership data by
Women 11.42 18.3 gender
Joint 58.47 24.2
• Gender and Asset Module.docx

7. 2. Men and Women’s Participation
Markets
Households Level
• Women and men face
different constraints as they
participate in markets
• Patterns of market
participation may vary across
crops, livestock and products
• Women more likely to sell to
informal than formal markets
(often farm gate)

8. 2. Men and Women’s Participation
Markets
Other markets
• Women’s participation
in markets along the
whole value chain
• Women’s participation
in trading and labour
markets

9. 3. Types of markets that men and
women commonly access
• Women more likely to sell at farm
gate to other farmers /brokers or Variable Coeff z P>z
traders
Belong to group
• Types of markets influenced be (1=yes) 1.026 2.48 0.013**
women’s access to resources,
assets to enable them participate Age of spouse 0.017 0.97 0.334
in markets
Has communication
• Terms of trade in formal markets asset (1=yes) 1.195 2.09 0.037**
are not always conducive for
Has transport asset
women e.g formal payment (1=yes) 1.856 3.26 0.001***
systems that require them to have
back accounts Women received
training (1=yes) -0.544 -0.9 0.369
Women
education=primary 0.104 0.23 0.822
education=post
primary 0.483 0.65 0.515
acreage=> 5 acres 0.114 0.28 0.782
dependency ratio=>1 0.476 1.05 0.296
Constant -1.780 -1.83 0.067

10. 4. Constraints faced by men and women
in participating in markets
• Reasons for women’s preferences for farm-gate markets
– Pay better than sales to brokers /traders
– Saves time taken to go to markets
– Traders at farm gate often purchase in large amounts and pay in
cash
– Shops pay poorly and have strict quality requirements
– Broker patronage of other markets
• Constraints to farm gate markets
– Not regular /consistent
– Payments not made at time of purchase (especially neighbours)
who also often buy in small quantities

11. 5. Patterns of income management by men, women
and jointly
Unitary Household Collective
Model Household Model
Common welfare Non-Co-operative Cooperative
function
Pooling of resources
Head is altruist
Individual autonomy Choice of acting as
Individual preferences individuals or joint
Sub-economies “mine, yours, ours”
Focus of analysis is
household level Focus of analysis is
individual level

12. Patterns of income management by men
and women
• Influenced by
– type of product,
– total income from
product
– who sells,
– type of market

13. What influences income management by
women
• A general trend of a rise in
income share by women across
the low income commodities
which changes with the higher
income commodities
• high income commodities such
as potatoes and pigs showed
lower income share by women
(some exceptions such as rice)
• In the lower income
categories, groundnuts and
poultry had average incomes
below USD 100 per annum and
high income shares going to
women (43.6% for groundnuts
and 52.7% for poultry)

14. Income management and where sold
• Women managed a
higher income share
when product was
sold at farm gate
compared to when
sold at village
markets or delivered
to traders
• When women sold
(physically or did the
transaction), they
managed a higher
income share (for
both products and
species)

15. Income management and change of markets
Malawi-Active export
market orientation--
decline in women’s
control of income from
the crop as total income
(bar) increased. Thus as
the beans became more
marketable, men tended
to get interested and
took over.

16. Implications for research and data collection
• Standard approaches of analyzing value chains can often miss
the gender and intra-household issues.
• Need to look within the households at men and women, and
jointness of activities, decisions and incomes
• Identify indicators /evaluation criteria from men and women
– Separate evaluation and tools between men and women to
take into account differences
• Who to ask questions, interview?
• Disaggregation of data..what data and what level of
disaggregation. Household headship is not enough!
• Multiple tool (surveys, participatory value chain mapping, case
studies, panel studies etc)

17. Implications for Development
• Programs aimed at increasing
commercialization or using a value
chain approach need to take into
account these gender and intra-
household dynamics.
• Use of data and evidence to inform
gender strategies
• Gender sensitive value chain or
commodity selection and value chain
analysis, monitoring and evaluation
helps to develop strategies to benefit
men and women without undermining
the control of these commodities by
either

18. Implications for Development
• Indicators for market and value chain
projects need to be ‘gendered’ and to go
beyond measuring participation and
household incomes and focus on
distributional impacts
• Working with both men and women in
market development
• Working on multiple value chains and
multiple markets (both formal and
informal) and
• Integrating gender training in market
development can mitigate against negative
intra-household effects from value chain
and market development programs