Sugarcane Commercialization and Gender Experiences in the Zambian “Sweetest Town”

ABSTRACT

This article explores how sugarcane commercialization impacts gender relations, and processes that shape them, using two differently structured outgrower schemes – a settlement scheme and an European Union-driven block farm in southern Zambia. Results show gendered impacts across the schemes are complex and are shaped by diverse cultural arrangements as micro-processes. Intrahousehold patterns of decision making, land, and labor dynamics reveal that changing the structure, organization, and integration of outgrower schemes does not necessarily make them responsive to strategic gender needs. Further, these processes are insufficient in altering pre-existing sociocultural imbalances. Consequently, even where schemes are intentional about being inclusive, they are likely to replicate structural inequalities and fail to engender transformational changes among participants. This article raises the need to address the politics of land and labor relations, and their implications for different social groups within their cultural-historical context.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Gendered impacts of commercial agriculture reflect market and nonmarket dynamics.

• Schemes amplify preexisting inequalities despite being intentional on inclusivity.

• Land ownership shapes women’s responses and political reactions in schemes.

• Inheritance patterns may address land inequalities but more needs to be done.

• Addressing strategic gender needs requires market and nonmarket interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Agricultural commercialization
• contract farming
• gender relations
• outgrower schemes
• sugarcane value-chain
• Zambia

JEL Codes:

• B54
• Q15
• Q13

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the Department of Development Studies at the University of Zambia for providing me with an opportunity to present an early version of this paper through the Development Studies Seminar Series. I thank Roy M. Kalinda, Lecturer in the Department of Social Work and Sociology at the University of Zambia, and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of the paper. The author remains responsible for any remaining errors and omissions.

Notes

1 Feminization is the process of enforcing the idea that anything is naturally aligned with women or girls or so-called qualities of femininity. Masculinity is the same but for men. However, in a patriarchal society or organization, masculinized things can be de-masculinized, and, in most cases, de-masculinizing process results in the role losing its former prestige and political influence. So, one can imagine the sources of gendered discrimination (for example, employment and salaries, political positions, and influence, and so forth) and what that may mean for women taking up certain roles, which are de-masculinized (Adams, Gerber, and Amacker 2019).

2 All personal information that would allow the identification of any person(s) described in the article has been removed.

3 Farmers with land outside the scheme boundaries could swap with farmers who had extra land in the catchment area. Rather than swapping, some farmers sold their extra land for quick economic gains (including those that exited sugarcane), leading to unintended lost opportunity for poor farmers especially women and youths (Manda, Dougill, and Tallontire 2018).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Simon Manda

Simon Manda is Postdoctoral researcher at Oregon State University (Cascades), USA. He researches climate change and disaster relocations. Specifically, his research examines policy and legal mechanisms, and related adaptation possibilities for individuals, neighborhoods, and communities who are faced with repetitive flooding in the US. He is also a lecturer in the Department of Development Studies, University of Zambia. His research interest includes agribusinesses, value chains, natural resource governance, and rural livelihoods in Africa.