Within the Kenyan dairy sector, climate change mitigation interventions are striving to sustainably intensify milk production while addressing the gender dynamics that mediate farmers' ability to effectively participate in, and benefit from, low emissions development. In order to better understand these gender dynamics, household surveys were deployed by the East African Dairy Development (EADD) program to collect information on current practices of decision-making, resources, and labor dynamics within dairy farm households. Using the EADD survey results as secondary data, this study analyzes emergent patterns in these domains among cattle-keeping households in Bomet, Nandi, Uasin Gishu, and Kericho counties in Western Kenya. In analyzing these patterns, paired sample tests revealed statistically significant differences in results based on the gender of the respondent. While there were some categories that women and men reported on similarly, other areas were hotly contested. These results provide important challenges, both methodologically and programmatically, in interpreting gender dynamics across these domains. This paper reflects on the challenges and the opportunities of these data for informing gender-equitable low emissions development in the Kenyan dairy sector.
“Women and youth” targets are commonly homogenized both in development discourse and in programmatic targeting. While this framing aims to recognize the customary inequities in agricultural development activities traditionally oriented toward elder men, the homogenization of these categories does not capture the intra-gender differences between these social groups. We explore the utility of intersectionality as an applied analytic concept in agricultural research for development to shed light on the heterogeneity of these social groups and the gender power relations that mediate farmer engagement with agriculture. Drawing on qualitative interview data from the Tanzanian dairy sector, this study applies intersectional analysis to explore how gender, generation, and marital status create power relationships that influence farmers’ positioning to engage in dairy production, institutions, and processes. We find that applying intersectionality helps us understand not only intersecting inequalities but also the fundamentally different experiences and power outcomes that occur at these intersections.
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