Gender equity in contract farming in Eastern Africa

Contract farming is growing rapidly in Eastern Africa. This research project will evaluate innovations in contract farming operations designed to increase the benefits wives accrue from the contract. It also evaluates whether this improves the relationship between the household and the firm. It integrates a gender dimension into an otherwise gender-blind area of practice and research.

Contract farming is a form of vertical integration within agricultural commodity chains such that a firm has greater control over the production process and final product. Changes in the demand for and supply of agricultural products have increased the popularity of this form of vertical integration in many low-income countries and it is attracting considerable policy and academic attention. While academic work in the 1980s and 1990s offered a mixed assessment of the extent to which contract farming engaged with and benefited smallholders, recent literature offers a much more positive interpretation of smallholder participation.

That said, there are still considerable risks for both firms and farms such that contracting operations frequently collapse. For firms, there is a large risk of smallholders side-marketing both inputs and produce. There are also numerous risks for small-scale producers. Two risks are especially important for smallholders: contracting can contribute to a loss of autonomy and control over farm enterprises and a form of dependency on the contracting firm; and, second, the intra-household distribution of labour/income can be altered to the detriment of women's interests.

This research project focuses on the last of these risks through evaluating innovations that seek to both increase wives' benefits and to improve the relationships between the firm and the household. This is through adding gender-specific elements to the contract to increase the 'self-enforcement range'. By this we mean that by adding these extra investments within the contract we reduce the likelihood of either party breaking the deal due to a change in market or contextual conditions.

The overarching research question is:

To what extent and how do gender-specific clauses within contracts improve outcomes for both farms and firms?

The subsidiary research questions are:

To what extent and how do gender-specific clauses improve the benefits wives accrue from contract farming operations?
To what extent and how do such clauses influence farm production?
And to what extent and how do such clauses improve the stability and longevity of contract farming relationships?

In Malawi, we evaluate the inclusion of a contract for wives to grow and market groundnuts (a conventional crop for women to produce) alongside tobacco to examine effects on yields, prices and, most importantly, the intra-household distribution of labour/income. We do this by combining a randomized design - where members and clubs are randomly assigned the innovation - with a series of qualitative research methods including life history interviews and focus group discussions. The attrition rate (in other words, the number of households dropping from the scheme) will assess whether the farm/firm relationship has changed. In Tanzania, we utilise the same methodology and sequence of research methods but the precise contractual innovation will be determined during the first two months of the project.

In the second phase of research, we extend the project to examine gender-specific innovations in palm oil in Ghana and tobacco in Zimbabwe.

Outreach, uptake and use strategy

This project has a very clear and achievable set of activities to maximise the dissemination, uptake and use of the research findings by academics, policymakers and practitioners. The strategy aims to engage and influence four specific communities. These are as follows:

Policymakers and practitioners in Lilongwe and Dar es Salaam

Output: To provide a rigorous examination of the costs of benefits of separate contracts for wives
How: Through the presentation workshop in Lilongwe, the set of research briefs, and online resources.
Impact: To influence on-going policy discussions on contract farming legislation, in addition to the agricultural development strategy and national development strategies.

Donors and other stakeholders in the agricultural sectors (for example, DfID, World Bank, Danida, NORAD, SIDA and NGOs)

Output: To provide an example of how development partners can structure innovative impact evaluations of interventions within contract farming schemes.
How: Through the presentation workshops, articles in daily newspapers regarding the impact of the project, research briefs and online resources.
Impact: To help inform donor country strategies, and improve the range of tools available to evaluation specialists and consultants.

Evaluation communities (for example, the African Evaluation Society and European Evaluation Society)

Output: To demonstrate how a qualitative research tool can be utilised within a quantitative research methodology.
How: Through working papers and journal articles.
Impact: The help reduce the gap between advocates of randomized control trials and mainstream evaluation communities.

Development community in the UK

Output: To contribute to the debate on contract farming in Africa, and the debate on the use of experimental methods in development research.
How: Workshop at Overseas Development Institute (ODI), London, research briefs, working papers and journal articles.
Impact: To help bridge the gap between qual and quant evaluation practitioners, and show how mixed methods can be conducted in practice.

The project will include web-based dissemination and outreach tools, which will host details of the study, its methodology, and later, anonymised datasets, visual trajectories and papers.