Can Certified-Tea Value Chains Deliver Gender Equality in Tanzania?

ABSTRACT

A popular approach over the past twenty years has been to rely upon voluntary standards as a means to make claims, measure, and judge whether a number of social-equity concerns exist in private-sector practices. But can voluntary standards deliver gender equity? This contribution responds to this question by exploring how standards and gendered division of labor interact in certified-tea value chains (for example, Ethical Tea Partnership, Fairtrade, Organic, and Rainforest Alliance) in Tanzania. The results of this mixed-method study (2008–10, 2013) contribute to the literature on gender equity and standards by building on the gendered value-chain approach to analyze these complex and contextual interactions. The study proposes that there is a need to focus on the interactions between men and women with different skills and training that contribute to how equitably their roles are distributed in the certified-tea value chains.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender equity
• labor standards
• social norms
• political economy

JEL Codes:

• Z13
• J43

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTOR

Allison Loconto studied international affairs and development at American University in Washington, DC and sociology at Michigan State University. Dr. Loconto is Research Fellow at the National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) in France and the Institute for Research and Innovation in Society (IFRIS), as well as a Visiting Expert at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Her current research explores intersections between sustainability standards and responsible innovation in agriculture. Her recent research has been published in the Review of International Political Economy, Regulation and Governance, and Science, Technology, and Human Values.

Acknowledgements

All personal information that would allow the identification of any person or person(s) described in the contribution has been removed. This study is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant# SES-0924202; and by an Institute of International Education Fulbright Fellowship, funded by the US Department of State. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies. The treatment of human subjects in this study was approved by the Human Subjects Review Board of Michigan State University (IRB#08-480). The author thanks Emmanuel Simbua and researchers at the Tea Research Institute of Tanzania who assisted in collecting data for this study. The author thanks Lawrence Busch and Anne Ferguson for comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Notes

1 I refer to this group of standards as social and environmental standards, since they refer to standards that consist of auditable indicators on social and environmental issues.

2 These standards are ETP (based on the Ethical Trade Initiative [ETI] base code but more comprehensive on environmental issues), FLO, OR (European Union Regulation (EC) N° 834/2007 and (EC) N° 889/2008; former: (EEC) N° 2092/91), and RA. Internal supplier standards such as Unilever's sustainable agriculture standard and Typhoo Tea's premier quality standard were also used, but in this context I am referring specifically to third-party standards. For example, GlobalGAP has never been used in the tea industry in Tanzania.

3 Interviews and focus groups were conducted in Kiswahili or English by the author. A research assistant transcribed the Kiswahili tapes and translation into English was conducted jointly between the author and research assistant.

4 “Any distinction, exclusion or preference made on the basis of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin, which has the effect of nullifying or impairing equality of opportunity or treatment in employment or occupation. Positive discrimination in favour of people from certain underrepresented groups may be legal in some countries” (C11 Discrimination [Employment and Occupation] Convention 1958, ILO [1958]).

5 “Made tea” refers to dried and graded tea that is not blended.

6 “Villagization” was the name of Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere's socialist policy to promote small-scale subsistence and collective agriculture in the villages across Tanzania. The intention of this social, economic, and political project was to avoid the dangers of urban capitalism and to promote a collective national identity. Nyerere was in office from 1964–85.

7 Jiendesha is the transport company.