grasping the fruits of agricultural trade liberalization: opportunities and challenges for women
TRANSCRIPT
“Grasping the fruits of agricultural trade liberalization: opportunities and challenges for Women”
Dr. David LabordeSenior Research Fellow, IFPRIMTID Division
with contributions from Dr. Kelly Jones and Tess Lallemant
Presentation made during the “International value chains in agriculture: challenges and opportunities to address gender inequalities” session at the WTO PUBLIC FORUM 2016
Setting the stage• Research on Gender, Value Chains and Trade: the need of good data
• Understanding biases
Ex-ante vs Ex-post
De jure vs De facto
• Discriminate between Market failures vs Policy failures
Is the “Invisible Hand” biased?
Could we correct this bias with the right policies?
• Capturing the complexity of the agricultural value chains: different products involved, different roles in the VC for women
• Facing the same global situation, different outcomes due to different environment socio-economic environments
International trade and gender biasesRole of women in agriculture
value chains
Specific contribution of International Trade and
trade policies
Primary producers
• Participation to production
• Control of production
Crop specialization
• Cash crops (export oriented)
• Food crops (domestic markets, import competing)
• Livestocks
Processing stage
• Industrial processing
Female vs male labour specificities
• Increased linkages to rich markets
• International VC specialization (shrimps,
horticulture)
• Pros: Formal sector, Cons: additional workload if no
behavioral adjustment
Trading and Marketing stage
• Services (food distribution) and
local markets
Role of imports
• Inputs, including basic food products (e.g. Tanzania
and sugar)
Consumers Affordable and diversified source of food
Gender Inequalities at the production stage: Consequences and Origins• Large share of the agricultural labor force in developing
countries provided by women (on average 43%, 50% in Africa)
• Still women are disadvantaged:
in productive asset ownership
control of productive inputs
Nature of extension services (e.g. male providers and female farmers)
• Consequences: in average, lower productivity for women farmers due lower access to inputs and human capital
• Less policy support?
Lower political capital
Access to import licenses
• Intra-household dynamics (see Jones and al. for ongoing research in Uganda and Ghana) :
Increased commercialization and move towards cash crops due to shifts in intra-household allocation (while women often participate in cash crop production, it is almost exclusively men who are responsible for sales and profit allocation)
Role of redistributing “rights” by allocating contracts to man or woman
How to make international trade more inclusive?How to increase women’s participation to international trade?
• Specific barriers to trade
Fixed cost to trade
• Scale matters
Quantity, homogenous quality
See Dr. Bernard’s presentation
• Productivity matters
Farmer heterogeneity, productivity and participation
Role of Trade Facilitation
How to increase women’s payoff from international trade?
• Specific role in VC
• Could we generate gender “premium”? The role of specific labels?
See Dr. Minten’s presentation
• Two caveats
Address domestic bottlenecks and local constraints
Price response vs behavorial changes
Women’s empowerment index in Agriculture
• Check
Based on Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Agnes Quisumbing, Farzana Ramzan,
Emily Hogue, and Sabina Alkire
Check http://www.ifpri.org/topic/weai-resource-
center
Farm and Trade Policies impacts
• Understand the policy effects on Output prices
Input prices and access (e.g. fertilizers vouchers)
Price of assets (land, herds)
income vs wealth effects
• Domestic vs International Distortions
• Role of product specialization
• Illustration with Uganda: balanced environment, balanced outcomes
Price distortions and gender inequalities
Author’s computation
based on Ag-Incentives
Consortium data, and
Uganda LSMS survey
Domestic vs International Distortions (I)
Author’s computation
based on Ag-Incentives
Consortium data, and
Uganda LSMS survey
Domestic vs International Distortions (II)
Author’s computation
based on Ag-Incentives
Consortium data, and
Uganda LSMS survey
Concluding Remarks• Addressing gender inequalities in agricultural value chains are important
due to:
Economic outcomes
Social outcomes
Environmental outcomes
• Gender inequalities will not be solved in Geneva, Still:
International negotiations should aim to control for ex-post biases
Discipline on policy space should control for gender biases
Role of trade facilitation
• Understanding domestic constraints are critical
No uniform “silver” bullet
Price incentives and/or distortions have limited impacts without behavioral changes