Smallholder farmers account for over 90 per cent of domestic rice production in Tanzania. Their participation in markets provides opportunities for growth through income and employment. However, their ability to participate is hampered by personal, household and institutional constraints. We adopt the double hurdle model to explore determinants of market participation by rice farmers using data collected from selected rice growing regions in Tanzania. The decision to participate in the market is affected by the cropped area, yield, distance to the market and type of variety grown. Besides these factors, the quantity marketed is affected by the existence of a market within the village. There is need for labour-saving technologies for area expansion and yield improvement

In 2015, the United Nations identified achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls as the fifth of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations General Assembly 2015). Gender e...

Introduction: Women play important roles in the dairy sector in Tanzania yet many women face local gender norms which inhibit them from benefitting from their enterprises. This affects women’s empowerment and the development of effective livestock businesses.Methods: This study addresses the question: How do women’s empowerment and gender norms affect women’s engagement in livestock business? To respond, this study explores how women attempt to negotiate gender norms in order to create a niche for their agribusiness, and thereby to empower themselves. Since gender norms are diverse, research was undertaken in 2021 with agripreneurs running dairy-related businesses in two regions of Tanzania. Gender-disaggregated focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and individual interviews were carried out in Kilimanjaro and Tanga regions which had been target sites for the bigger Maziwa Zaidi Phase II project in Tanzania. In total, 24 women dairy farmers, 25 men dairy farmers, 20 women agripreneurs and 22 men agripreneurs involved in selling feeds, milk collection and agro-veterinary goods and services such as artificial insemination and livestock extension participated in the FGDs. Twelve women and 16 men were interviewed as KIIs while 12 women and 15 men were interviewed individually.Results and Discussion: The findings show that women agripreneurs are active in selling milk and earning an income, and a few women provide AI services. However, local gender norms significantly reduce potential gains. Normative sanctions are applied to women who are perceived to be moving beyond acceptable gender norms in their efforts to establish their dairy related livelihoods. Yet this picture is not uniform. The presence of traditionally more favorable local gender norms towards engagement in smallholder dairy related businesses allows women in the Kilimanjaro Region to openly exercise more decision-making power and secure more benefits compared to women in Tanga Region where local norms largely limited women’s engagement because dairying is a rather novel concept and was introduced in the 1990s as a men’s income generation enterprise.Our own findings indicate that local patriarchal contexts remain powerful in both study sites. However with sustained empowerment efforts, women and men fairly express an understanding of empowerment as a process, involving building capacity, supporting, creating an enabling environment for achieving of one’s goals. Women note that an empowered woman faces more barriers than an empowered man because if married, she has to consult with her husband prior to making big investments. Empowered men are however free to do as they like with their resources. Patriarchal norms guiding social ordering in Tanzania therefore place a cap on achievement as well as expression of empowerment by women. Moreover, through gender norms gatekeeping, significant relations such as husbands and community members can also act as empowerment gatekeepers reining in women’s expression and experience of empowerment, especially if her husband is economically disempowered while she is.

Introduction: The poultry sub-sector is important for rural livelihoods in both Nigeria and Tanzania, providing income, food, and livelihood opportunities for small-scale producers. However, climate change is creating increasing challenges for small-scale poultry farmers and threatening the sector’s capacity to support livelihoods. At the same time, poultry enterprises hold significant potential for strengthening women’s empowerment and economic resilience. This potential is shaped by gender norms, understood as socially accepted and expected behaviours for women and men within a given group or society. These norms are likely to influence women’s engagement in poultry entrepreneurship and, consequently, their opportunities for empowerment and resilience. Methods: This qualitative study explores how gender norms shape women’s empowerment and economic resilience to climate change in poultry enterprises. Data were collected through two stakeholder workshops which guided the selection of study sites and actors that would provide valuable information during the surveys. Twelve Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) comprising six with men and six with women, fifteen Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) comprising eight with men and seven with women, and twenty-one Individual Interviews (IDIs) comprising twelve with men and nine with women were conducted. Participants were purposively selected from Muleba district in Tanzania and Oyo State in Nigeria. The data were analysed thematically using a deductive–inductive approach: deductive coding was guided by the study’s research questions, while inductive coding was used to identify additional insights emerging from the data. Results and discussion: The findings show that gender norms assign men authority as primary decision-makers, breadwinners, resource owners and controllers, including over women’s resources, and household guardians. Women, by contrast, are positioned primarily as homemakers and caregivers. These interconnected norms constrain women’s ability to participate in, control, and benefit from poultry entrepreneurship, thereby limiting the potential of poultry enterprises to strengthen women’s empowerment and economic resilience. Interventions should work with target communities to foster more equitable gender norms and support women’s meaningful participation in poultry agripreneurship. These norms should be addressed both before and after climate shocks so that poultry enterprises can provide a stronger enabling environment for women’s empowerment and economic resilience.