This study examines the extent of the productivity gap between male and female bean producers, its discriminatory nature and implications for the policymakers in agriculture in Tanzania. Generally, women are distinctively “invisible” in agriculture, due to social norms and even from the national agricultural policy perspective. Their discrimination arises from uncounted and unaccounted for farm work, and their productivity is reduced by triple roles, limited access to education, having triple effects on access to technology, training and land rights. In research, issues of concern to them such as nutritious food crops, varietal selection on important attributes, household food security, convenient home storage and small-scale processing are widely ignored through unfavourable policy design. Given the above discriminatory issues surrounding women in agriculture, they are hypothesised to be less productive and often lag behind male counterparts in crop production. To test the above hypothesis, a three-stage stratified sampling method was used to collect cross-sectional data in 2016 across four regions of Tanzania. Then, an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method (at means) was used to apportion the sources of the difference between men and women into explained and unexplained variations. Further improvements through the newly developed Re-Centered Influence Functions (RIFs) remarkably improved outcomes as the differences were analysed through unconditional partial effects on quantiles. Using a counterfactual approach and correcting for selection bias, the model provided consistent estimates for easy comparison of the two groups. Besides this, it emerged that interventions such as providing improved bean seed varieties and training farmers on good agricultural practices reduced the gender yield gap and provided a potential avenue for addressing the discrimination observed in productivity among males and females. Controlling for selection bias also improved the model, but the real discrimination was observed at the 50th percentile, where the majority of the respondents lay within. However, if a female’s age, family size, additional years of schooling and discretion to spend income from beans were taken away, they would be worse off. Our study finds that females comprised 25 percent of the sample, had 6 percent lower productivity, provided 64.70 percent on-farm labour and had 0.32 hectares less land compared to males, ceteris paribus. Access to improved varieties contributed to a 35.4 percent improved productivity compared to growing indigenous/local varieties. The implication is that the gender yield gap can be reduced significantly if efforts are focused on preventing or correcting factors causing discrimination against women.

Background: Common bean breeders strive to deliver farmer- and consumer-preferred varieties that are well-adapted to distinct production environments, changing markets and end uses. However, there is information gap on the key traits that customers prefer and are willing to pay for. This paper examined the preferences and willingness to pay for reduced cooking time and other selected traits in the Ugandan bean markets using a choice experiment data elicited from 1152 urban and rural bean consuming households. A latent class model was used to assess preferences and the willingness to pay for reduced cooking time. Results: Results indicated that taste, cooking time, bean swelling on cooking, and grain color were the preferred attributes in decreasing order among non-bean-producers. About 72% of the urban consumers were willing to pay 41 shillings, 53 shillings and 42 shillings above prices for reduction in cooking time from 120 (status quo) to 90, 75, and 60 min, respectively. For consumers who also grow their beans for food and surplus for sale, reduced cooking time is important but not as much as yield and climate resilience. The study identified four distinct customer segments—two among bean-producing households and two among non-bean-producing households. Gender, education, level of altruism/openness to change, household economic status, and price sensitivity were the major factors influencing segment membership. Conclusions: The study findings demonstrated that breeding to reduce cooking time will generate a significant social savings in terms of less cooking fuel, water and time, but cooking time ought to be considered alongside other attributes preferred by consumers and farmers to succeed. Results also suggest that women urban consumers attach more importance to higher levels of intrinsic traits (non-visible but experienced by consumers) compared to men—thus promotional campaigns popularizing new varieties should target women to stimulate demand.

Economic performance of community based bean seed production and marketing in the central rift valley of Ethiopia

This paper evaluates the impact of improved common bean varieties on food security using two indicators: per capita food consumption expenditure and diet diversity score. A generalised propensity score matching technique and an instrumental variable approach were used to assess the impact of improved bean adoption on household food security outcomes. Results show that the effect of improved common bean adoption is generally positive and increases with area allocated for improved beans. The study results are useful for designing strategies to address seed access constraints and provides important lessons for breeders working to achieve higher food security outcomes among land-constrained households.

This paper assessed the effect of climbing bean adoption on the welfare of the bean growers in Rwanda, using four indicators: per capita consumption expenditure, poverty head count, quantity of bean consumed per person and food security. The analysis was based on cross sectional data from a nationally representative survey of bean growers, conducted in 2011. Instrumental variables and control function approaches were used to address the endogeneity of climbing bean adoption decisions in household welfare outcomes. Results demonstrated that investments in climbing bean research and dissemination efforts contributed significantly to improve household welfare. One additional kilogram of climbing bean seed planted raises per capita consumption expenditure by 0.9% and that of bean consumption by 2.8%, and increases the probability that a household is food secure by 0.6% while decreasing the likelihood of being poor by 0.6%. These findings highlight the important role climbing bean adoption can play in reducing food insecurity and poverty in land constrained areas.

This study uses a choice experiment method to quantify farmers’ valuation of key bean variety attributes under different climatic conditions of Kenya and assess their willingness to pay or accept for changes in those attributes. The study also tests for the gender related heterogeneity in attribute preferences at individual and household level while accounting for differences in production scenarios to understand when and where men and women preferences begin to diverge or converge. The key common bean attributes were: yield, tolerance to environmental stresses (intermittent drought and root rot), early maturing, taste and reduced cooking time. Choice data was collected from random selected 504 households from purposively selected districts of high drought prone areas and high rainfall parts of Kenya. A random parameter logit model with interactions that accounts for random heterogeneity and conditional heterogeneity was used to derive unbiased estimates. Results indicate that all attributes are important but farmer derive higher utility from changes in consumption and post-harvest attributes compared to those in production attributes. Farmer valuation of the changes in yield, tolerance to environmental stresses and cooking time are heterogeneous, partly explained by size of the household, gender, risk aversion and market access. Men generally are likely to derive higher values from improvements in these attributes than women. Results have important implications for breeding priority setting, seed dissemination and integration of gender into bean improvement research. Key word: Choice experiment, bean attributes, gender, Kenya.