بهره وری اقتصادی و پاسخگویی تامین زنان به عنوان مدیران مزرعه: شواهد تطبیقی ​​از غرب کنیا

This paper assessed the relative economic efficiency and output supply and input demand responses of women farmers in western Kenya. The results showed that women are as technically and allocatively efficient as men. However, neither men nor women have absolute allocative efficiency. Women farmers are equally responsive to price incentives in terms of output supply and input demand. While education and extension contact have significant effects on overall maize supply and input demand, only extension contact has significant effects among women farmers. The paper discusses a number of significant results and concludes with implications for policy.

A large volume of literature has documented the key roles of women in agricultural production in developing countries, ranging from providing a significant share of labor for food as well as cash crop production (Boserup, 1970, Dixon, 1982, FAO, 1985 and Gladwin, 1991) to managing their own fields (Moock, 1976, Quisumbing, 1996, Saito et al., 1994, Udry, 1996 and Udry et al., 1995). However, traditional biases against women have led to an asymmetric distribution of rights, resources, and responsibilities (Udry, 1996). There is a large and growing volume of literature showing that women farmers have limited access to both physical and human capital, including land, labor, education, extension, and credit (Bindlish and Evenson, 1993, Birkhaeuser et al., 1991, Doss, 2001, FAO, 1985 and Quisumbing, 1996). For instance, in a review of 25 years of literature on designing agricultural technologies for African farmers, Doss (2001) found that female farmers, especially female-headed households, are often not contacted by extension services. The need for correcting gender imbalances in access to resources and support services has long been recognized, in the view of women’s major contribution to agricultural production and the argument that women farmers are as efficient as men. However, whether women are in fact as efficient as men has been debated. This has motivated a lot of empirical work on measuring and explaining male–female differences in agricultural productivity. In Africa, there are fewer studies investigating gender differentials than in other parts of the developing world, and the results are also mixed (e.g., Moock, 1976, Bindlish and Evenson, 1993, Bindlish et al., 1993, Saito et al., 1994, Udry et al., 1995 and Adesina and Djato, 1997). No significant gender differences were found in Kenya (Bindlish and Evenson, 1993, Moock, 1976 and Saito et al., 1994) and Côte d’Ivoire (Adesina & Djato, 1997). Mixed results were obtained for Nigeria (Saito et al., 1994) and Burkina Faso (Bindlish et al., 1993 and Udry et al., 1995). In Nigeria (Saito et al., 1994), household level analysis revealed no gender differentials, but plot level analysis showed that women were less productive than men. In Burkina Faso, Bindlish et al. (1993) found that women were less productive than men, but Udry et al. (1995) found that, except in sorghum production, there were no significant gender yield differentials. Quisumbing (1996) reviewed the empirical literature and concluded that, in general, male and female farmers are equally efficient as farm managers, and the lower yields of women farmers are attributable to their use of lower levels of inputs and human capital than men. However, the review singled out methodological problems associated with the use of production functions that do not account for the endogeneity of input choice as the major limitation of past work and recommended further rigorous measurement of gender differences in agricultural productivity. Specifically, it pointed out that estimating profit or cost functions instead of production functions would address concerns about the endogeneity of input choice (Quisumbing, 1996). Apart from accounting for endogeneity, the profit function would indeed allow the investigation of women’s relative allocative efficiency and supply response. Although allocative efficiency has long been the major subject of research on farmer efficiency, largely motivated by the famous “poor but efficient” hypothesis (Schultz, 1964), it has been ignored in the literature on gender efficiency differentials. The apparent disconnect between the actual subject of the investigation of male–female differences (i.e., technical efficiency) and the early influential work on peasant efficiency (i.e., allocative efficiency) means that empirical evidence on gender efficiency differentials thus far cannot be used to validate the “poor but efficient” hypothesis as it relates to women farmers. The gender implications of economic reforms have also been increasingly recognized. There has been a growing concern that the emphasis of adjustment policies on producer prices of cash crops, at the expense of food crops, might deteriorate the position of women farmers relative to men (Warner & Campbell, 2000). This paper uses the profit function approach to assess relative technical and allocative efficiency as well as output supply and input demand responses of women farm managers in Kenya. The systems of restricted profit, maize supply, and input demand equations are estimated, incorporating the full range of price and non-price factors. Given that maize is both the major food crop and a cash crop in Kenya, it can serve as an interesting case with which to examine gender differentials in technical, allocative, and economic efficiency. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The next section presents the analytical model and hypotheses, whereas the data and empirical econometric procedures are discussed in the third section. The results are presented and discussed in the fourth section and the last section draws conclusions and implications for policy.

Traditional biases against women and a number of other factors have led to an asymmetric distribution of physical and human capital. Moreover, women farmers have largely been excluded from development projects and public support services. In view of the increasing recognition of women’s major contribution to agricultural production, correcting gender imbalances in access to resources and support services has been central to development policy in Africa. However, lack of adequate empirical evidence regarding the levels and determinants of the relative efficiency, output supply, and input demand among women farmers has contributed to the slow progress in the design of public programs and economic reforms that are sensitive to and appropriate for women farmers in Africa. This study used the profit function approach to assess the relative technical and allocative efficiency as well as the output supply and input demand responses of women farmers in Kenya. The results showed that women farmers are as technically and allocatively efficient as men, controlling for physical inputs and human capital factors of production. The results confirmed that the observed maize yield differentials between men and women farmers were largely due to the differences in access to land and education. The results showed, however, that neither men nor women farmers have absolute allocative efficiency in the use of variable factors of production. Allocative inefficiency could be due to maize price instability and declining public credit support in Kenya following liberalization, which have depressed fertilizer use among smallholders. The results further showed that women farmers are as responsive as men to price incentives—in terms of output supply and input demand. Women farmers have a positive and significant maize supply response to changes in maize prices. Maize prices are the most important factors influencing not only maize supply but also input demand. Land has also turned out to be as important as maize prices in influencing output supply, especially among women farmers. The results suggest that integrated public programs, including modern variety development and dissemination, input supply, and credit, would help address low land endowments and low productivity among women farmers in Africa. There are important differences as well as similarities with regard to the effects of human capital factors. While both education and extension contact have significant effects on overall maize supply and input demand, only extension contact has significant effects on maize supply and input demand among women farmers. The significant effect of extension contact on maize supply among women confirms that women farmers in the sample, as well as in Kenya in general, have as good access to extension as men farmers, and extension services are also equally effective and useful among men and women farmers. The insignificant effect of education on maize supply among women only confirms that far fewer farmers in the sample, as well as in Kenya in general, have actually acquired the level of education that is needed to significantly raise agricultural production, and not because education is less important for women. This implies that strategies aimed at raising the level of education of women would help correct existing gender differentials in human capital endowments, thereby raising the productivity of women farmers. It should be noted that education and extension are largely complementary support services, and thus the popular extension interventions cannot be considered sufficient to correct human capital imbalances between men and women farmers. Instead, a multi-pronged approach to the development of the human capital assets of women is needed that involves the education of girls as well as non-formal education and extension programs that are appropriate for women farmers. It is concluded that there are potentially large output and welfare gains from increasing women farmers’ access to production inputs and support services to the levels available to men.