Gender Divide in Irish Potato Production among Farming Households in Uasin-Gishu County, Kenya

Abstract

Women contribute substantively to the agricultural sector and support food security. However, gender-based differences in terms of control and access to financial and productive resources inhibit their sustainability, resilience, and agricultural productivity. This study investigates the gender-based productivity differences in Irish potato production in Uasin-Gishu County, Kenya, and identifies the factors driving this disparity. This study adopted a cross-sectional field survey and simple random sampling to collect quantitative data from 256 respondents (67 female and 189 male farmers). The Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition model decomposed the gap into the endowment (differences in resource endowments) and structural (differences in return to the endowment factors) effects. Our study finds a production gap of 11% favoring male farmers, with a structural effect (53 %) larger than the endowment effect (33%). This study confirms that a notable number of factors, including land, education, climate-smart technologies, and fertilizer, cause the gap. Therefore, these factors represent the potential intervention areas in any attempt to reduce the gender gap. Policymakers should devise interventions through a gender lens against using a one-fits-all intervention to uplift female farmers from their low productivity traps. Keywords: Oaxaca-Blinder, Female, male, agricultural, farmers, gap DOI: 10.7176/JESD/13-14-04 Publication date: July 31 st 2022