In Malawi, researchers from the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut are working to help women preserve their income and independence.

As more men enter groundnut (peanut) farming, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut is helping women groundnut farmers in Malawi by evaluating and refining a widespread system of workshops that aims to empower women in household decision-making. The goal is to help women improve their business skills and contribute to shared decision making at the household level and continue to benefit from this profitable and nutritious crop.

Since 2018, the Peanut Innovation Lab has assisted groundnut farmers in Malawi and other low income  countries through grant funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Although the Peanut Innovation Lab is managed by the University of Georgia, it uses a network of scientists in the United States and African countries, from both the public and private sector, to solve problems related to groundnut production in countries where it grows well and its consumption can improve nutrition levels. The Peanut Innovation Lab also researches ways to address challenges for women in groundnut agriculture.

Peanut Innovation Lab researchers study how to improve groundnut varieties, prevent aflatoxin contamination in harvested groundnuts, and enhance farming practices such as planting and harvest dates, row/plant spacing, disease and pest management, and drying and storage after harvest. It also trains smallholder farmers on making improvements and increasing their production of groundnuts.

Women farmers in Kasungu district, Malawi, talk with researchers from the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut and others about the training and input support they receive from Limbe Leaf for their Village Savings and Loan Association, a financial support network for women farmers. They are (from right) Paulin Munthali, who leads the local group of female farmers, Anastazia Nkhoma and Lenia Mwale. (Photo by Allison Floyd, Peanut Innovation Lab)

Smallholder farmers account for around 93 percent of groundnut production in Malawi. Farmers grow about 420,000 tons per year, but the Malawian government has set a goal to more than double that production to 1 million metric tons per year by 2030.

Farmers in Malawi face constraints like inefficient agriculture market systems, with erratic market pricing for groundnuts. Low productivity among smallholder farmers limits production and product diversification, and public sector agricultural extension support cannot effectively transfer basic business skills or improved technologies to farmers. Unfortunately, women face even greater challenges. Women have even less access to land, financing and high-quality agricultural inputs because of  sociocultural norms regarding men’s and women’s roles.

Women in the Groundnut Sector

However, in Malawi, groundnuts have traditionally been a “woman’s crop,” with women comprising up to 70 percent of groundnut producers.  Despite gender inequality in other agricultural sectors, Malawian women have historically controlled all aspects of the groundnut production, from farming to processing to marketing and management. However, Malawian men are looking to grow groundnuts themselves in the wake of a declining tobacco market. Tobacco has been a significant part of the country’s economy for decades, but due to falling demand, it is no longer profitable.

According to Jessica Marter-Kenyon, Assistant Research Scientist for the Peanut Innovation Lab, “Losing the [tobacco] industry will be devastating to the country unless other alternatives replace it. Peanut is one of the most promising. It can be both consumed and sold for cash … Peanuts are also highly nutritious [benefiting consumers, including producer households] and nitrogen-fixing [benefiting other crops and the soil].”

However, Marter-Kenyon noted: “The concern is that the commercialization effort will crowd women out of the groundnut sector for the very same structural reasons that women are excluded from other economically profitable activities.”

Marter-Kenyon explained that, although groundnut production has historically been neglected by the public and private sector in Malawi, this crop has been an important source of power for women in terms of income, decision-making, household economic management and independence.

“Now, because tobacco markets are declining and its profitability is waning, those powerful actors [in the public and private sectors] are turning their attention to groundnut’s potential as a cash crop to fill the gap left by the receding tobacco industry,” she said.

To address that concern, the Peanut Innovation Lab considered various empowerment schemes – from agriculture companies contracting directly with women to buy their crops to developing lending co-ops that allow women to borrow money for inputs. Ultimately, the lab decided to evaluate, adapt and use the Gender Action Learning System (GALS), a training method designed to improve cooperation between men and women and empower women in household decision-making. The technique is based on one developed by Linda Mayoux, a researcher and international consultant on gender issues in economic development. Participants use visual diagrams to imagine the futures they want and take action against any barriers that inhibit it, including those societal norms that drive gender inequality and injustice.

The Peanut Innovation Lab chose the GALS method because it specifically addresses the structural causes of bias against women. “Empowering women requires more than just technical intervention. It requires transformative socio-behavioral change, the participation of men as well as women and local ownership and design,” said Marter-Kenyon.

Working with other organizations, the Peanut Innovation Lab will collect baseline information from around 7,500 households next year, then conduct various iterations of the GALS interactive workshops with husbands and wives, including a shorter version, the typical three-day training and an extended version. In the workshops, couples collaborate on family goals, consider household resources and contributions of individual household members and develop a shared vision for their family.

GALS is designed to shift the social norms and power relations that contribute to bias against women. The method includes men to gain their cooperation in improving conditions for women, encouraging them to be allies and lead efforts to make changes.

Enumerators working for the project will return one year and again at two years after the training to survey families and find out whether participants saw changes in their lives.

Other organizations involved in the effort include:

• USAID Malawi Mission
• Government of Malawi, Department of Agricultural Research Services
• Growth Poles, a USAID project run by Palladium
• Irish Aid
• Pyxus Agriculture Ltd.
• Limbe Leaf
• WOLREC (Women’s Legal Resources Centre)
• Universities including LUANAR of Malawi, University of California Santa Barbara, University of Texas, Columbia University, and University of Georgia

“There’s a lot of excitement about the approach &hellips; but we still need a better understanding of how it [GALS] works … Our research will look at a broad set of outcomes, including women’s empowerment, gender equity, household welfare, agricultural productivity, income, but also outcomes of specific interest to the private sector companies that are contracting groundnut farmers, e.g., loan repayment, quality and quantity of groundnuts sold back to the company, etc. If GALS improves those latter outcomes, there may be an argument for the private sector to start paying for social interventions like GALS, not just agronomic training,” Marter-Kenyon said.