Mainstreaming Gender Sensitivity in Cash Crop Market Supply Chains

Abstract

Gender-specific constraints on the production and marketing of cash crops have important implications for the ability of men and women to participate in market-oriented agricultural growth and development. This chapter analyzes how gender inequalities in resources result in different levels of participation, methods of production, and modes of marketing cash crops. Two empirical case studies of traditional perennial export cash crops—cocoa in Ghana and coffee in Uganda—provide empirical evidence on the effects of such constraints. Women cocoa farmers in Ghana face barriers in accessing input markets, particularly markets for labor and non-labor inputs, influencing their choice of production technology. In Uganda, the low quantities marketed, and lack of access to bicycles, limit female coffee farmers to marketing channels that have very low transaction costs, but which receive lower prices. To enable women to engage in cash crop production, the authors provide three context-specific recommendations: (1) improving women’s access to land and encouraging better integration of food markets through improved roads and increased mobile networks; (2) strengthening female farmers groups or marketing groups to which female farmers can belong so that women may achieve scale in marketing; and (3) improving access to credit and extension services to relieve female farmers’ constraints in purchasing quantity- or quality-enhancing inputs. Further work in assessing the patterns and underlying determinants of female engagement in a wide variety of cash crop markets will be needed to better identify the most appropriate interventions.