Gender roles, decision-making and challenges to agroforestry adoption in Northwest Vietnam

Abstract

Consideration of gender aspects is needed to ensure that none of the sexes are marginalised in agroforestry interventions. Globally, women farmers are known to have played significant roles in agroforestry, especially at the early stage of tree establishment and maintenance. However, there is very little documentation about this phenomenon in Vietnam. Based on a household socio-economic baseline survey conducted by the Agroforestry for Livelihoods of Smallholder Farmers (AFLI) project in northwest Vietnam, we examined women's participation in, and benefits from agroforestry, control and access to productive resources, decision-making, and the factors affecting agroforestry adoption. The study found that the key contraints to agroforestry adoption by both men and women is lack of technical knowledge on agroforestry technologies; however women, predominantly ethnic minorities, have more constraints in adopting agroforestry compared to men. For female headed households, this is due primarily to lack of land and labour, and collateral assets; for women in general, interlinked factors such as lack of knowledge, low educational level, and poor access to extension constrained adoption. The study recommends that agroforestry interventions should (i) promote practices that cater to labour-scarce female headed households; (ii) provide preferential credit access to female headed households; (iii) channel extension support to women's associations; and (iv) produce extension materials in the local dialect. The lack of attention to gender issues limits agroforestry interventions to deliver benefits for rural households in Northwest Vietnam