Subject:Gender inclusion in commercial dairy chains in the global south
lunch presentation by SiljaHeyland, Van Hall Larenstein
Date:09/07/2014
Status:notes from lunch meeting by Wim Goris
To:participants, Gender platform, Agri-Hubs East Africa
On July 9, 2014, Silja Heyland presented her BSc thesis at Atlas building Wageningen. Siljais a student of International Development Management at Van Hall LarensteinWageningen. Her study on how gender-inclusion improves commercial dairy supply chains in the global south was commissioned by Agri-ProFocusand Fair and Sustainable (Angelica Senders). 15 peoplefrom7organisationsattended the lunch presentation. See full study, gender toolkit, article, list of participantsandpowerpointhere:
Presentation
The topic of gender-inclusion in commercial dairy chains comes down to recognizing women as dairy farmers. According to literature, this recognition goes beyond women rights and well-being, it also makes business sense. The research objective was to find attractive arguments for local business chain actors to address gender issues in their dairy supply chains and to give an overview of chain interventions that contribute to successful gender-inclusion.
In the research, a sample of 8 dairy programmes in Afghanistan, Bangla Desh, Ethiopia, East-Africa, India, Kenya, Malawi, and Nicaragua was analysed via desk research and semi-structured interviews over skype with programme staff. The focus was on household and producer organisations. The 8 projects were analysedusing two gender in value chains tools developed within the Agri-ProFocus partnership:
-the Gender-Sensitive Value Chain Mapping tool was used to draw the dairy supply chain and make women visible as stakeholdersat the household and producer level.
-the Gender and Value Chain Empowerment Diamond tool was used to analyse the impact for men and women on the 4 directions: value chain activities, value chain governance, structure and agency.
The research found 5 business arguments for taking into account the role of women. Each of the statements below were confirmed by 3 to 6 of the programmes.
1. Women are active milk suppliers and their groups supply the same or more milk than men groups.2. Women (groups) strongly contribute to good milk quality and hygienic handling.
3. Producer organization perform best with a female leader.
4. Addressing the right target group with interventions shows better results.
5. Women participation/leadership positions increase the number of participants.
In addition to the business view, all programmes interviewed report that thanks to the gender-sensitivedairy interventions women receive more respect from their husbands, and their self-esteem and confidence increased. Families’ collaboration and joint decision-making contributes to better business for private business and dairy farmers families.’
Discussion
First topic in the discussion with audience was on the milk money. The typicalsituation is that husbands go to the coop/buyerto collect the money once a month. The study found that more frequent payments and easier access to finance through mobile banking are benefitting women. In Kenya, Heifer links a dairy hub to a SACCO, so that access to financial services is backed by the milk sales. Cash payment on milk delivery explains why middleman have a share of the market. So, dairy coops that arrange frequent payments address a key issue for dairy farmers, females in particular.
A second topic raised was about the attribution of specific interventions. The point is that a gender-blind dairy programme already has impact on gender relations. Is it possible to disentangle the effects of the specific activities on gender? The research did not compare with a control group of dairy programmes without gender activities. However, intervieweesmentionedthatanalysinglack of progress in dairy programmes indentified gender issues: gender sensitive planning helped overcome stagnation. In the India casethe targeting of women (by employing female staff) helped to augment milk volume.
Regarding the wording: gender inclusion is about women and men, while the business arguments are framed in terms of women empowerment. Also, inclusion is understood as a reaction to exclusion. The implication for the use of the Gender Diamond tool is ..
Recommendations
The research also identified a number of succesful factors and derived the following recommendations for development programmes.
1.Include gender-inclusiveness from the start of the intervention.
2.Promote household cooperation by organizing dairy farmer excursions for dairy producer couples to other (national)sites in which gender-inclusion is practised.
3.Make female dairy producersvisible.
This part of the discussion led to some suggestions on item 3. Visibility among farmers may be enhanced by awarding the best female dairy farmer or starting a printed media campaign. Targetting the visibility of female farmers among buyers/processors may lead to better business relations. Awareness raising may also promote women participation in radio talk shows and other media on agriculture.
The recommendations to Agri-ProFocus include promoting gender in value chains via training/webinars, organised discussions and a newsletter. The upcoming event in Uganda on Quality issues in dairy looks like a good opportunity to deepen this discussion. The business case of gender x dairy is that an input on gender means output in milk.
Agri-ProFocus is to promote among members and partners the use of gender in value chain tools for dairy programmes. The tools also apply downstream the dairy chain.
Further contact
On thesis: SiljaHeyland,
On dairy: Wim Goris,
On gender: Angelica Senders
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