Power of partnership conference: Presentation: Contract farming and gender equity in African landscapes (CONGENIAL)

1. Power of Partnership
CONGENIAL
Contract Farming and Gender Equity
in African Landscapes

2. CONGENIAL
Contract farming is expanding
rapidly in Africa but suffers
from high rates of default and
claims of exploitation by
smallholders
We assessed if and how including wives within schemes
improved benefits for farms, firms and families
in Malawi and Tanzania

3. CONGENIAL
Mixed results – outcomes depended on how wives are
included, the crops in question and agrarian context
We combined a pilot clustered
randomised design with an interview
schedule including open, closed and
biographical questions
Husbands and wives interviewed
separately using the same questionnaire

4. CONGENIAL
• Impact journey unpredictable -
formal engagement events
superseded by ad hoc
discussions with broader actors
• Delicate trade-off between fidelity
to findings and fostering linkages
(especially looking for funding)
• Direct impact - AOI Malawi now includes extra food crop
seeds to 7,000 contracted households
• NASFAM learning

5. CONGENIAL
Main challenge to impact was
the size of the pilot designs: just
too small to make strong claims
about the impact of the
interventions
Similar evaluations should to be
conducted at scale with
sufficient funding to ensure
power calculations hold