EVWA Council Policy Paper 3: Enhancing Access to Leadership For Women Smallholder Farmers

Recommendations from the Elevating the Voices of Women in
Agriculture (EVWA) Council
Paper 3: Enhancing Access to Leadership for
Women Smallholder Farmers
In its first two policy briefs, the Elevating the
Voices of Women in Agriculture (EVWA) Council
proposed approaches to advance equitable
access to land and resources for women
smallholder farmers. In this final brief, the
Council discusses the issue of access to
leadership. Enhanced access to leadership for
women smallholder farmers would serve as a
catalyst to close gaps in access to land and
resources, and to achieve greater gender
equality in the agriculture sector overall.
Gender gaps in access to leadership among
smallholder farmers manifest in three different
ways. The first is the most often discussed and
the most visible: women are underrepresented
in leadership positions in agricultural
organisations at all levels, from local collectives
to international organisations. The causes of this
underrepresentation include prevailing cultural
norms and prejudices (and a resulting lack of
confidence/restrictions on mobility/activities),
as well as women’s lower education and literacy
levels and greater household responsibilities.
Another barrier is the lack of compensation for
leaders of farmer groups, which makes it more
difficult for women to justify the time away from
their farms and families. 1 This is a global issue,
not limited to smallholder farmers or emerging
economies. Agriculture is a male-dominated
industry around the world and women farmers
are also heavily underrepresented in agricultural
leadership in countries such as the United States
and Australia. 2
The second way in which the gender gap in
access to leadership manifests is much less
visible and relates to the extent to which
women smallholder farmers are able to
influence decision-making. Studies have found
that even when women achieve leadership
positions, for example in the governing
committees of farmer groups, they do not
always have the same influence as male leaders.
The types of leadership positions open to
women also have an impact. A study of
women’s representation in the leadership of
farmers’ groups in Uganda found that women
are most often found in the position of
treasurer, because they are viewed as reliable
and good record keepers, but much less often
in key decision-making positions such as
chairperson or advisor. 3 Women leaders’
influence on decision-making is difficult to
1
Chan, M. and Barrientos, S. 2010. Improving
Opportunities for Women in Smallholder-based
Supply Chains. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/documents/ge
nder-value-chain-guide.pdf; Chayal, K. et al.,
2013. Involvement of Farm Women in Decisionmaking
in Agriculture. Studies on Home and
Community Science 7(1): 35-37.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3212
14801_Involvement_of_Farm_Women_in_Decisi
on-making_In_Agriculture.; Huot, S., Jensen, L.,
Bates, R., and Ader, D., 2023. Barriers of Women
in Acquiring Leadership Positions in Agricultural
Cooperatives: The Case of Cambodia. Rural
Sociology 88(3).
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/
ruso.12490.; TechnoServe, 2021. Women Who
Lead: Empowering Women Farmers in India.
https://www.technoserve.org/blog/women-wholead-empowering-women-farmers-in-india/.
2
E.g. Ressia, S., Strachan, G., Rogers, M., Ball,
K., and McPhail, R., 2022. Farm
Businesswomen’s Aspirations for Leadership: A
Case Study of the Agricultural Sector in
Queensland, Australia. Frontiers in Sustainable
Food Systems. DOI:
10.3389/fsufs.2022.838073.
3
Nakazi, F., Aseete, P., Katungi, E. and Ugen,
M.A., 2017. The potential and limits of farmers’
groups as catalysts of women leaders. Cogent
Economics & Finance, 5:1.
https://doi.org/10.1080/23322039.2017.134832
6
1

measure; often-used indicators such as the
share of women on leadership committees do
not capture whether their opinions carry equal
weight within those committees. Even at the
household or farm level, measuring women’s
roles in decision-making is difficult; when
people declare that certain decisions are made
jointly by men and women, that may not mean
they have equal participation in decisionmaking
or equal influence on the final decision. 4
The third manifestation of the gender gap in
access to leadership is found in women
smallholder farmers’ ability to influence
leadership; to have their concerns and ideas
conveyed to, heard by, and acted upon by
people in leadership positions. There is less
literature available about this specific to
smallholder farmers, though in other contexts,
the gap is well-studied. It is the result of
differences in networks and mobility between
men and women that lead to men having more
opportunities to encounter leaders, as well as
biases among leaders and the digital gender
divide.
The benefits of enhanced access to leadership
by women smallholder farmers are welldocumented.
They include more informed
decision-making, based on a greater and more
diverse pool of knowledge, leading to more
effective policies and programmes not only for
women, but for entire communities. 5 In
addition, studies have found that
empowerment of women as decision-makers at
the farm level was associated with increased
productivity, efficiency, use of inputs such as
improved seeds, and adoption of new
technology, 6 and that agricultural decisionmaking
in groups (such as collectives) led to
broader benefits when more women were
involved. 7
In response to these findings, the Elevating the
Voices of Women in Agriculture Council
proposes the following seedlings to guide the
planning of interventions in this area.
Seedling 1: Leadership begins in
communities
For the majority of women smallholder farmers,
the decisions that most impact their day-to-day
lives are made at the household and
community levels. In addition, many women
farmers who have become influential at higher
levels first honed their leadership skills in their
communities. Therefore, interventions at the
grassroots level are key to enhancing women
smallholder farmers’ access to leadership and
ability to make decisions to improve their lives.
All over the world, women smallholder farmers
organise themselves in small, informal groups at
the community level. The structure and goals of
these groups differ based on local cultures and
contexts, but they often take the form of savings
groups or informal cooperatives. These groups
facilitate collective action, which is a powerful
way to empower women smallholder farmers
as leaders. 8 Experiences with informal women’s
4
Williamson, J., 2021. Measuring Women’s
Decision-Making Power in Agriculture. Agrilinks.
https://agrilinks.org/post/measuring-womensdecision-making-power-agriculture.
5
ActionAID, 2021. Advancing the Rights of
Women Smallholder Farmers. Policy Brief.
https://actionaid.org.au/wpcontent/uploads/2021/07/Advancing_the_rights
_of_women_farmers.pdf
6
Mobarok, M.H., Skevas, T., and Thompson, W.,
2021. Women’s empowerment in agriculture
and productivity change: The case of
Bangladesh rice farms. PLoS ONE 16(8).
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255589;
Williamson, 2021.
7
Bell, A.R., et al., 2023. Financial incentives
often fail to reconcile agricultural productivity
and pro-conservation behavior.
Communications Earth & Environment
(2023)4:27, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-
00689-6.
8
IFAD, 2015. Promoting the leadership of
women in producers’ organizations: lessons
from the experiences of FAO and IFAD.
https://www.ifad.org/en/web/knowledge/-
/publication/promoting-the-leadership-ofwomen-in-producers-organizations-lessonsfrom-the-experiences-of-fao-and-ifad?;
Umutesi, V., 2021. Promoting female leadership
2

groups suggest that if they become particularly
successful or influential, men often take an
interest, which sometimes leads to them taking
over. A study of 65 farmer groups in Uganda
found that the larger the group, the less likely it
is to have women in leadership positions, and
the less influence any women leaders have on
decision making. 9
Supporting informal, local-level women’s
groups and empowering women to stay in
charge also once they achieve success and
formalise would be a highly effective strategy to
foster women’s leadership. However, these
groups’ informality and the fact that they tend
not to form part of larger structures (i.e. they are
not organized into umbrella associations)
makes them difficult to reach. Working with
them effectively requires a grassroots approach,
extensive knowledge of realities on the ground,
and engagement over longer periods. Large
programmes and international NGOs are not
well-placed to work at this level; to do this work
at scale would require a multitude of small
grants to a range of small, local organisations.
This raises challenges related to logistics and the
overhead costs associated with the
management of large numbers of small
contracts; though these could perhaps
(partially) be addressed through the use of
emerging technologies. Inspiration could also
be drawn from e.g. vaccination and education
campaigns, which have successfully reached
even remote rural areas.
Seedling 2: Empower women along
value chains
In the long term, the most sustainable way to
empower women smallholder farmers to access
leadership is to foster structures through which
women can support each other. These can
include the groups referred to in the first
seedling, but another strategy is to connect
women along agricultural value chains.
LadyAgri works to organise and empower
women in value chains of commodities, such as
cocoa, where they are often thought to be
absent but are more likely just not visible,
because they are not in charge of transactions.
They encourage women in the value chain to
empower women in other stages. For example,
they help women buyers to develop long-term
supportive relationships with the women
farmers who supply them. Buyers may provide
small amounts of financial support that women
farmers may need more than men, such as
funding at the end of summer so that women
do not need to empty out their savings groups’
funds to pay for school supplies. Such initiatives
strengthen the positions of both the farmers
and the buyers.
Women are underrepresented in formal
contract farming schemes and producer
groups. Companies with smallholder farmers in
their supply chains can grow their supplier base
by encouraging more women to join such
groups. Companies can also support women to
take up leadership positions on boards and
committees and improve their effectiveness, by
introducing quotas, encouraging and
supporting women to stand for election
(through separate trainings,
mentorship/championing of promising
candidates), and explaining the importance and
benefits of women’s representation to men. 10
Consumers of agricultural products tend to be
mostly women and can be mobilised to support
smallholder farmers. Companies can work to
enhance traceability of their products and raise
awareness of the roles women play in
agricultural supply chains. One coffee exporter
undertaking awareness raising among men
about the benefits of women’s representation
emphasised consumer interests: “because
women make the majority of food purchases,
consumers (mostly women) want to know that
women producers at the other end of the
in agricultural value chains. BEAM Exchange.
https://beamexchange.org/community/blogs/20
21/4/8/female-leadership-in-agricultural-valuechains/.
9
Nakazi et al., 2017.
10
Chan & Barrientos, 2010.
3

supply chain are benefiting from their
purchases.” 11
Seedling 3: Enhance the visibility of
women smallholder farmer leaders
As the members of the EVWA Council know
from experience, many inspiring examples exist
of women smallholder farmers achieving
leadership positions and improving lives and
livelihoods in their communities. However,
most of these remain relatively invisible.
Similarly, as LadyAgri has shown, women play
important roles in all parts of agricultural value
chains, but those roles go largely
unacknowledged. Women farmers are also
post-processors, buyers, and entrepreneurs, but
the image that persists in most minds is of a
woman toiling in a field.
The stories of women in leadership and
throughout value chains must be told, not only
(or not even primarily) by and to international
organisations and funders, but by the women
themselves, to others like them who can be
inspired. Role models are important; studies
show that once an organisation such as a farmer
group has one woman in its leadership, it
becomes much easier for others to join her. 12
Where no women leaders are present, role
models from outside the organisation can
encourage women to pursue leadership
positions.
It is important to choose the right medium to
reach smallholder farmers. The UN Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) established
‘Dimitra Clubs’, which allowed women
smallholder farmers to develop and feature in
community radio programmes discussing their
concerns. This boosted their self-confidence,
led to greater awareness of their concerns, and
11
Idem.
12
IFAD, 2015.
13
Idem.
14
Williamson, 2021.
15
Mobarok, Skevas & Thompson, 2021;
Williamson, 2021.
16
Connors, K. et al., 2023. Women’s
empowerment, production choices, and crop
enhanced recognition of participating women
as community leaders. 13
Seedling 4: Amplify virtuous cycles
If women smallholder farmers gain access to
land, resources and income-generating
activities, this gives them more power to
engage in decision making, and vice versa. 14
Several studies, including one among women
farmers in Bangladesh, found that enhanced
empowerment of women as decision-makers at
the farm level was associated with increased
productivity, efficiency, use of inputs such as
improved seeds, and adoption of new
technology. 15 Studies have also found that
when women have more influence on
household decision-making, households grow
more and a greater variety of food crops and
more nutrient-dense crops. This benefits both
food security and resilience. Participation of
women in community groups and asset
ownership by women was also associated with
the growing of more food crops. 16
However, any progress in women
empowerment is fragile, and virtuous cycles can
become vicious ones in times of socioeconomic
stress. The COVID-19 pandemic
resulted in reduced access to leadership by
women smallholder farmers (and reduced farm
productivity generally) because extra care
burdens due to closure of schools and
vulnerability of the elderly increased their
already disproportionate unpaid work burdens.
This also led to increased dependence on men
for income and food, and in some cases to
increased vulnerability to violence. More
support and more comprehensive planning
and policymaking is required to prevent
diversity in Burkina Faso, India, Malawi, and
Tanzania: a secondary analysis of crosssectional
data. Lancet Planet Health 2023; 7:
e558-69.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/arti
cle/PIIS2542-5196(23)00125-0/fulltext
4

pandemics and other shocks resulting in
setbacks for gender equality. 17
Seedling 5: Create a more permanent
space for discussions on gender
equality in smallholder farming
Over the course of six discussions, the EVWA
Council has touched upon many different issues
faced by women smallholder farmers. The
Council’s composition, with smallholder farmers
and their representatives as well as high-level
experts and leaders from international
organisations, governments, NGOs, and the
private sector, allowed for very direct and
productive discussions, the results of which
have been presented in the three policy briefs.
As climate change increasingly threatens
smallholder agriculture, addressing inequalities
and thereby enhancing the productivity of the
women farmers who grow the majority of
Africa’s food becomes ever more crucial. The
Council believes that the importance and
complexity of the issue of gender equality in
smallholder farming and agricultural value
chains merits a more permanent space for
discussion and the elaboration of catalytic
interventions. As the year 2026 has been
declared the Year of the Woman Farmer, we call
on governments, international organisations,
NGOs and the private sector to come together
and mark this year through the establishment of
a permanent body for the empowerment of
women smallholder farmers.
Key resources on women’s access to leadership
ActionAID, 2021. Advancing the Rights of Women Smallholder Farmers. Policy Brief.
https://actionaid.org.au/wpcontent/uploads/2021/07/Advancing_the_rights_of_women_farmers.pdf
Bell, A.R., et al., 2023. Financial incentives often fail to reconcile agricultural productivity and proconservation
behavior. Communications Earth & Environment (2023)4:27,
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00689-6.
Berman, D., 2023. Training for Women Farmers Boosts Opportunity – and Ambition. Global Agriculture
& Food Security Program (GAFSP). https://www.gafspfund.org/news/training-women-farmersboosts-opportunity-and-ambition
Chan, M. and Barrientos, S. 2010. Improving Opportunities for Women in Smallholder-based Supply
Chains. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/documents/gender-value-chain-guide.pdf
Chayal, K. et al., 2013. Involvement of Farm Women in Decision-making in Agriculture. Studies on
Home and Community Science 7(1): 35-37.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321214801_Involvement_of_Farm_Women_in_De
cision-making_In_Agriculture.
Connors, K. et al., 2023. Women’s empowerment, production choices, and crop diversity in Burkina
Faso, India, Malawi, and Tanzania: a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data. Lancet Planet
Health 2023; 7: e558-69. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-
5196(23)00125-0/fulltext
IFAD, 2015. Promoting the leadership of women in producers’ organizations: lessons from the
experiences of FAO and IFAD. https://www.ifad.org/en/web/knowledge/-
/publication/promoting-the-leadership-of-women-in-producers-organizations-lessons-fromthe-experiences-of-fao-and-ifad?
17
ActionAID, 2021.
5

Huot, S., Jensen, L., Bates, R., and Ader, D., 2023. Barriers of Women in Acquiring Leadership Positions in
Agricultural Cooperatives: The Case of Cambodia. Rural Sociology 88(3).
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ruso.12490.
Mobarok, M.H., Skevas, T., and Thompson, W., 2021. Women’s empowerment in agriculture and
productivity change: The case of Bangladesh rice farms. PLoS ONE 16(8).
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255589
Nakazi, F., Aseete, P., Katungi, E. and Ugen, M.A., 2017. The potential and limits of farmers’ groups as
catalysts of women leaders. Cogent Economics & Finance, 5:1.
https://doi.org/10.1080/23322039.2017.1348326
Ragasa, C. et al. 2023. Women’s Empowerment in Agrifood Governance (WEAGov) Assessment
Framework: A Pilot Study in Nigeria. International Food Policy Research Institute.
https://www.ifpri.org/publication/womens-empowerment-agrifood-governance-weagovassessment-framework-pilot-study-nigeria.
Ressia, S., Strachan, G., Rogers, M., Ball, K., and McPhail, R., 2022. Farm Businesswomen’s Aspirations for
Leadership: A Case Study of the Agricultural Sector in Queensland, Australia. Frontiers in
Sustainable Food Systems. DOI: 10.3389/fsufs.2022.838073.
Rosenbach, G. et al., 2023. Synopsis: Women’s Empowerment in Rwandan agriculture: A baseline
assessment in the context of Rwanda’s gender and youth mainstreaming strategy and the
fourth strategic plan for agricultural transformation. International Food Policy Research
Institute.
https://ebrary.ifpri.org/utils/getfile/collection/p15738coll2/id/136825/filename/137036.pdf.
Umutesi, V., 2021. Promoting female leadership in agricultural value chains. BEAM Exchange.
https://beamexchange.org/community/blogs/2021/4/8/female-leadership-in-agriculturalvalue-chains/.
TechnoServe, 2021. Women Who Lead: Empowering Women Farmers in India.
https://www.technoserve.org/blog/women-who-lead-empowering-women-farmers-in-india/.
Walmart Foundation, 2021. Seeding advancement of women in smallholder farming: insights from the
Market Access portfolio.
https://cdn.corporate.walmart.com/a5/b6/68c470734b2bb90e59c082ebc336/wmts-gendercase-study-030821.pdf
Williamson, J., 2021. Measuring Women’s Decision-Making Power in Agriculture. Agrilinks.
https://agrilinks.org/post/measuring-womens-decision-making-power-agriculture.
6