Unlocking the Household ‘Black Box’: A Gendered Analysis of Smallholder Farmers' Participation in the Cassava (Manihot esculenta crantz) Value Chain in Tanzania

Abstract

Women in developing countries are often omitted from key parts of the agricultural value chains. We used household survey data in bi-probit and ordinary least squares regression models to estimate the determinants of women's participation in cassava cultivation and marketing in Tanzania. Land size and region, among other factors, were significant determinants of household decisions to grow cassava. Policies for improving women's land rights and infrastructure would help to promote their participation in cassava production, processing and marketing. Improved methods of delivering extension information would also improve women's participation in the cassava value chain markets.

Exploring the Influence of Gender on Cassava (Manihot esculenta) Value Chain among Smallholder Farmers: A Case of Central Highlands, Vietnam

“…The results presented in this study are consistent with the findings reported by Masamha et al (2018b) in their research on gender analysis of smallholder farmer's participation in the cassava value chain in Tanzania the cassava food value chain. Their study revealed that women had a significant role in the processing stage of the value chain of cassava within households.…”

“…Our study's findings regarding the extent of involvement in the production phase of the cassava value chain by both women and men sharply differ from those of Masamha et al (2018b), as our study showed similar R 2 coefficients for women and men (0.65 and 0.72) in contrast to Masamha et al's results, where the R 2 for females was about twice that of males (0.45 and 0.26). The model's explanation of the overall variation is smaller for men than for women, and the omission of variables like marital status, region, and age, as seen in previous research, may have affected the significance of the outcomes in the OLS model; furthermore, in the male model, the observation regarding the the household head's age aligns with the findings of Ayamga et al (2006), and is statistically significant.…”

“…Our research reveals that access to credit supports female leadership in households, in line with the findings of Saenz and Thompson, (2017), while the ownership of local transport has a minimal and negative effect on women's participation, which was unexpected, likely due to the common practice of middlemen buying fresh cassava at the farm. As a result, farmers may not feel the need to transport their produce to the market, and while this variable had a negative impact, it did not reach statistical significance, aligning with the results of Masamha et al (2018b) where the ARL_Sq variable showed a significant and negative correlation with women's involvement in cassava farming (p < 0.05). The negative effect of the squared land area aligns with Saenz and Thompson's, (2017) findings on the genderpolicy dynamics in farm households, while the squared variable related to the number of individuals under 18 years old had a significant negative impact on women's participation in cassava cultivation, in contrast to our current study where it showed noteworthy positive effects (p < 0.05).…”