For whom will the crop be promoted? A search for gender equity along the grain-legume value chains in Uganda

Abstract

There is growing interest in gender analysis and value chain analysis as tools for ensuring equitable participation in agricultural commodity markets. This study examined the gender factors that influence the patterns and levels of participation by women and men in grain value chains in Uganda. Data were collected from six districts in three regions of Uganda using qualitative gender tools. Findings show that marked division of labour along gender-lines happens at postharvest handling stages where threshing and winnowing is mostly done by women while men supervise storage and also control marketing and incomes. Division of labour is due to socio-cultural ascriptions to the sexes at community level with women having to work for longer hours than their male counterparts. Groundnuts were regarded as women’s crop while soya beans were for men. Regional variations were not significant but there were marked behavioral differences between the poorer and richer households across entire value chains from production to marketing with the poor exercising more caution during marketing to spread risks to the next harvest while the rich preferred one-time bulk sales. Specific interventions are needed to upgrade women participation in grain-legume businesses and scale-up labour saving post-harvest technologies especially draught animals, threshers, tarpaulins and hullers to ease drudgery on women and increase men’s participation.