Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Smallholder agricultural commercialisation is one of the trajectories in development policies and programs in sub-Saharan Africa. It involves transitioning smallholder farmers, who are predominantly subsistence producers, to market-oriented production. In Malawi, the agricultural commercialisation project is one of the initiatives targeting smallholder farmers in producer organisations to achieve this trajectory. By using matching grants, the project provides access to finance, productive assets, and structured value chains. It aims to integrate smallholder farmers into markets and turn them into profit-driven producers. However, there is limited evidence on how inclusive the commercialisation trajectory is for women farmers and whether such inclusion contributes to women's agency and empowerment.
This study examines how AGCOM-operationalised agricultural commercialisation processes interact with gendered power relations to influence women’s agency within the commercialisation of agriculture in Mzimba district. The study uses Mzimba district as a qualitative case study. It focused on three producer organisations that received matching grants from the AGCOM project. Using the members of the identified producer organisation, the thesis collected data through six focus group discussions with women-only groups and executive committees, sixteen women-only semi-structured interviews, and four key informant interviews.
By using feminist political economy and empowerment theories, the thesis reveals that women included in commercialisation processes have access to productive assets provided by AGCOM, as well as cooperative resources such as input loans and market linkages. However, this inclusion is characterised by labour intensification, indebtedness to meet the requirements of commercialisation, and dependence on male authority for participation in cooperatives and other commercialisation processes.
Gendered land tenure systems and inadequate marketing capacity shape the scope of women's agency in commercialisation processes, limiting them within the provisions of patriarchal power structures and cooperative capacity. In contexts of perceived production value, patriarchal authority is reinforced as male household members reassert control over production, marketing, cooperative membership, and income.
The thesis's findings reveal that agricultural commercialisation policies and programs, including cooperatives, need to recognise that women farmers are structurally and institutionally constrained from participating in commercialisation processes on equal terms. While intentions to include them may exist, these intentions also need to be accompanied by mechanisms and interventions that change the power structures and relations embedded in cooperatives, labour, finance, and markets. In relation to scholarly debates, the thesis contributes by arguing that commercialisation processes need to be examined for their social and gender implications.