Abstract
The objective of the study was to determine the degree of women empowerment in agriculture as well as examine the effect of organic certification and other socio-economic and cultural factors on women empowerment in agriculture in Kenya. This objective was achieved using data from peri-urban vegetable and rural honey producing households. It followed the innovative multidimensional measurement of women empowerment in agriculture, and the univariate and multivariate two limit Tobit models was used to assess the determinants of women empowerment. The two limit Tobit models results affirmed the hypothesis that organic certification opens up knowledge space for women empowerment in agriculture in some domains but had more impact among women in vegetable producing households. However, the variation of the degree of women empowerment in agriculture was also influenced by men, women and household socioeconomic and cultural characteristics. Policies geared towards enhancing women’s social capital and ownership of assets will improve the women household bargaining power and subsequently women empowerment in Agriculture. Key words: Women empowerment in agriculture, organic certification, peri-urban, rural, knowledge space.
Highlights
Developing countries have experienced proliferation of local market oriented organic production systems due to growing local demand for organic products resulting from the increasing income and urbanization (Hattam et al, 2012; Probst et al, 2012).The consumers in this market niche are concerned with the food attributes willing to pay premium prices for organic products (Hattam et al, 2012)
The results indicate that younger farmers with higher education level had higher likelihood of participating in certified organic production among vegetable and honey producers
The study has provided a micro level evidence of the degree of WEIA and the impact of certified organic agriculture and other social, economic and cultural on the degree of women empowerment in vegetable and honey producing households in Kenya
Summary
Developing countries have experienced proliferation of local market oriented organic production systems due to growing local demand for organic products resulting from the increasing income and urbanization (Hattam et al, 2012; Probst et al, 2012). The consumers in this market niche are concerned with the food attributes willing to pay premium prices for organic products (Hattam et al, 2012) This trend has shifted the marketers focus from promotion of food products to the promotion of food attributes among consumers and potential consumers (Stolzenback et al, 2013; Costanigro et al, 2014) through certification of the processes along the agricultural value chains.
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