Improving agri-practice: Adding value for women in staple crops

Lydia Mbevi Nderitu

Youth & Gender Associate

ACDI/VOCA

23rd & 24th May 2011

Project design

� Increased productivity

� Increased access to markets and trade

� Increased access to Business Support Services

� Increased efficiency of producer organizations

Gender analysis of the VC

1. Volunteer Consultant from ACDI/VOCA Martha A. Denney

� Director, International Education

� Colorado State University

� FGD with farmers and KMDP staff (2004)

2. USAID Gender Consultant Charity Kabutha

� FGD on value chains (2005)

Gender analysis of the VC

3. USAID GATE project integrating gender into

the maize value chain

� Deborah Rubin, Christina Manfre & Kara Nichols

Barrett

� FGD with members of the VC (2008)

4. Gender analysis & Baseline of new

geography – Consultant Charity Kabutha

� FGD with farmers for KMDP II (2011)

� Interviewed Makueni, Nakuru, Eldoret, Kitale, Bungoma and Siaya

Assessment of gender constraints

� Social change agenda

� Not just technical fixes

but also labor

� Family communication

patterns

� Project geography

variation of language,

culture, socialization, education and resources

available to the farmers

Assessment of gender constraints

� Women are not necessarily members of groups

� Few women are leaders in groups

� Few women attend meetings, trainings, exposure visits

� Demonstration plots

� Deception – nobody wins

� Donkey cart

Gender constraints

Gender issues

treated with a lot

of defensiveness,

suspicion and

inability to hear

what is being said

by both sexes

Interventions

� Partners and gender

� Single sex meetings (leadership)

� Review of publications

� Farming as a Family Business

� By laws at group level

� Technical fixes

� Chemical/Biological interventions

Gender related bottlenecks

� Gender myths

� Culture

� Language

� Access to resources

� Land

� Capital

� Cash crop verses subsistence farming

� Over loading women and children

KMDP II

� Male team members

taking an active role

in gender issues

� Gender sensitive

deliverables

� Women’s inequitable access

to factors of production

KMDP II

� Gender sensitive indicators

�Number of women with

effective control of productive

assets�Whether they are the decision

makers

Thank you!

lmbevi@acdivoca-kenya.or.ke