THE MISSING LINKWorking with Women and Men

in Agricultural Market Development

Jemimah Njuki

LINK

Why Gender and Market Oriented Agriculture

• African Agriculture is commercializing at a fast rate mainly due opening up of regional and export markets and a drive at national level to make agriculture a viable business especially for smallholder

• Growth of domestic, regional and export markets especially for “traditional food crops”

• A variety of marketing models being applied=farmer co-operatives, contract schemes, participatory market approaches

• There are gender issues and consequences around this commercialization

Why is Gender crucial in agriculture development?An issue of growth and Equity!• Relates to agricultural productivity, food security, nutrition, poverty

reduction, and empowerment. • In all of these cases, women play a critical but often under-recognized role

and face greater constraints than men.• There is evidence that increasing access to resources by women as

important implications for economic growth and poverty reduction– Alderman, Haddad, and Udry (1996) estimated that reducing

inequalities in human capital, physical capital, and current inputs between men and women farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa has the potential to increase agricultural productivity by 10–20 percent

– The 2009 Global Hunger Index (GHI) is highly correlated with gender inequality— that is, countries that exhibit high levels of global hunger are also those with a high degree of gender inequality (von Grebmer et al. 2009).

• In most countries, women are half of the population!

Diagnosis and visioning

Multiple enterprises

Building capacity to understand markets

Building in research for competitiveness and sustainability

Group Organization and Social Capital

Increasing access to technologies, inputs and services

Capacity Strengthening

Impacts

8 regions, 36 districts

Northern Zone Arusha (3 districts) Kilimanjaro (6 districts) Manyara (4 districts) Tanga (5 districts)

Southern Zone Rukwa (3 districts) Iringa (4 districts) Mbeya (7 districts) Ruvuma (4 districts)

Institutionalizing participatory approaches in partner organizations

Scaling Up /Out

“ No one (woman) can whistle a symphony.

It takes an orchestra to play it.”

H.E. Luccock