The lure of the French bean: what’s in it for women?

Can gourmet crops for niche western markets, such as French beans, revive Africa's smallholder sector? What are the implications for communities that diversify into non-traditional high-value, export commodities?

A recent Journal of Development Studies paper analyses the divisive impact that the contract farming of French beans has had on households in Meru District, Kenya. Kenya’s exports of vegetables have increased rapidly over the last decade, surpassing coffee - historically the Kenya’s most prosperous export crop - as the nation's second major source of foreign exchange in the agricultural sector. Some two million people are now employed in the export horticulture sector, with half the trade volume derived from 15,000 small-scale farms. The contract farming of horticultural crops has been seen as a win win situation for smallholders, raising opportunities for both income and self-employment.

In Meru horticulture has conventionally been women’s responsibility and a main source of financial security for them. Inheriting neither land nor livestock, women’s main source of independent income is derived from the plots of land they receive upon marriage. By customary rights, women are able to sell the surplus vegetables not required for household consumption and have the right to dispose of that income as they wish.

Yet, this situation has changed. The introduction of a lucrative export crop - French beans – has led to an erosion in women’s rights to usufructory plots and generated struggles over labour allocation in the household. Although 90 percent of French bean contracts are issued to men, who receive the income for the produce, it is women who perform the bulk of labour to produce the crop, while maintaining primary responsibilities for domestic horticultural production and household responsibilities.

Important findings of the research include:

• Contract farming has increased women's work and weakened female control over horticultural production.
• Female labour has been significantly diverted from food (millet, sorghum, maize and peas) to French bean production.
• Conflicts between spouses over allocation of French bean income and labour contributions to household subsistence escalate into household violence.
• Women have sought to redress the inequalities of French bean production by participating in Christian conversion and practicing witchcraft
• While some aggrieved women turn to statutory law for redress, men justify their control over the new resource in terms of customary law.

Among the wider policy implications emerging from the case study are:

• Assumptions that new employment will be generated by diversification into

non-traditional exports need to have a gender focus, for example, who does the work? Who reaps the benefits?

• The need for measures to encourage export companies to contract with those who work the land on which export crops are grown.

Source(s):
'The Good Wife: Struggles over Land and Labour Allocation in the Kenyan Horticultural Sector' Journal of Development Studies 27(3) by Catherine Dolan

Funded by: Fulbright, Social Science Research Council, National Science Foundation

id21 Research Highlight: 4 April 2001

Further Information:
Catherine Dolan
School of Development Studies
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 1603 593395
Fax: +44 (0) 1603 451999
Contact the contributor: c.dolan@uea.ac.uk

School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia (UEA), UK

Other related links:
GARD is an online database on gender, agriculture and rural development

VINET is an interactive site for ethical trade in horticulture

ICARDA specialises in agricultural research in the dry areas

The World Bank focuses on rural development and agriculture

FAO highlights agriculture

Search the African Gender Institute for further research