| Abstract: |
This study presents findings from a qualitative research study conducted in
Chiapas, Mexico that is one component of a larger activity funded by the
Walmart Foundation and implemented by the International Food Policy Research
Institute (IFPRI), titled Applying New Evidence for Women’s Empowerment
(ANEW). ANEW seeks to generate evidence from mixed-methods evaluations of
women’s empowerment in production and other entrepreneurial efforts at
different nodes of agricultural value chains and aims to develop and validate
measures of women’s empowerment that focus on agricultural marketing and
collective empowerment at the group level, both of which build upon the
project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index for Market Inclusion
(pro-WEAI+MI). In this report, we present findings of a qualitative study of
coffee cooperatives supported by Root Capital in Chiapas, Mexico and how Root
Capital engages with them to advance women’s economic empowerment, among other
objectives. As part of this study, we aimed to describe the gender dynamics
and roles and responsibilities of men and women in the coffee value chain in
Chiapas, and the opportunities and barriers faced as a result of these
dynamics. This study employed qualitative methods to collect primary data from
types of respondents using individual and group interviews. Two coffee
cooperatives in Chiapas that work with Root Capital were selected to
participate in this study. From June to July 2023, 21 individual interviews
and 9 group interviews were conducted with market actors, men and women coffee
cooperative leaders, men and women cooperative members and their wives, and
Root Capital staff from two municipalities in Chiapas. The data were
transcribed into Spanish and then translated into English. These transcripts
were analyzed using thematic analysis in NVivo software. A codebook inclusive
of inductive and deductive themes was developed to guide the thematic
analysis. This study design adhered to best practices for ethical research and
received approval from IFPRI’s IRB. Several limitations should be considered
when reviewing the findings and conclusions of this study. There exist defined
gender roles and divisions of labor at each node of the coffee value chain in
Chiapas, and participants often described these roles as expected given social
norms or perceived gender-specific limitations of natural abilities that would
shape how men or women could engage in different activities. Men and women
indicated that while men are in charge of coffee production activities, women
do spend time contributing to cleaning and management activities, and that
women are heavily involved in the coffee harvest. Both men and women explained
that women are responsible for processing activities, which can be time
consuming and laborious, but often occur close to the home. Although the
coffee harvest activities require physical labor in picking and carrying the
baskets of ripened cherries, there is a perception that women cannot
participate in other post-harvesting activities, such as transporting bags of
coffee, because the lifting is too physically heavy of a task for women. Men
are responsible for managing the sale of coffee and directly negotiating with
the buyer to the extent that a negotiation happens. In instances when buyers
travel to the household as the point of sale, women can participate in sales,
typically facilitating the sale under the direction of her husband. However,
women still do not lift the coffee bags nor transport the bags for sale. And
many coffee producing households prefer to or sometimes need to hire labor to
help with coffee harvest activities; they tend to hire men as laborers more
out of preference or their availability compared to women. Men and women
interviewed for this study also described their perceptions and understanding
of empowerment and elements of an empowered person with relation to engaging
in the coffee value chain. Overall, while the concept of an empowered person
was difficult for both men and women to relate to, they shared perceptions of
how relations between men and women had changed over the years. Respecting
women’s rights or the perception of respecting women’s rights was more
acknowledged at the time of the interviews than in previous years, and it was
more common to see men and women both generating incomes for the household.
Men and women shared different perspectives regarding attitudes toward
intimate partner violence, whereas both acknowledged men often mistreated
their wives, but women discussed it as a private matter where men shared
concerns over women’s reaction to the mistreatment rather than the
mistreatment itself. Varying access to resources limited both men and women
farmer’s ability to advance in the coffee value chain, particularly access to
credit, which was limited for both men and women in the study areas. Limited
access to credit with favorable or reasonable terms limited men’s and women’s
ability to hire additional labor on their coffee farm or to purchase machines
that would reduce specifically women’s time burdens within the household.
Women’s time use is constrained by expectations and normative tasks in ways
that men are not constrained. Future research is needed and discussed to
better understand these dynamics of gendered roles and relations and elements
of empowerment in the coffee value chain in Chiapas. Men and women members of
the two respective cooperatives shared differences in how they were able to
participate in and benefit from their participation in each cooperative. One
cooperative provided more opportunities for members to directly engage in
meetings, social activities, and capacity building opportunities whereas the
other operated through a more decentralized structure and did not offer
opportunities for members to directly participate in decision-making or
meetings beyond the representation of their delegate. Members of both
cooperatives perceived their cooperatives to be consistent and reliable coffee
buyers offering stable prices. The former cooperative was also perceived as a
source of support and community for members to advance their coffee production
and post-harvesting activities. Both cooperatives also addressed key barriers
faced by members, such as providing consistent and reliable pricing. Some
members reported that cooperatives offered higher prices than those offered by
non-cooperative buyers. Cooperatives also provided transportation options for
producers to sell their coffee, which also enables women to have more
engagement in coffee sales. However, normative barriers, such as women’s
existing time burdens and their need for their husbands’ permission, limits
women’s full participation in the cooperatives. Finally, we explored the
extent to which Root Capital’s engagement with the cooperatives had supported
activities or changes that strengthen women’s empowerment by understanding
members and leaders’ perceptions of this engagement. Overall, cooperative
members were generally unaware of Root Capital and its engagement with the
cooperative. Since Root Capital does not provide direct services to farmers or
cooperative members, it was not surprising that many cooperative members were
generally unaware of Root Capital and its engagement with the cooperative.
However, a few were aware of Root Capital, knowing it had provided their
cooperative a loan to purchase and maintain a truck, which was used to reduce
barriers faced by producers to bring their coffee to the point of sale and had
implications for shifting gender roles to manage coffee sales. Cooperative
leaders reflected on the loan that facilitated increased transportation
capacity, as well as other benefits from working with Root Capital. However,
as Root Capital operates with a client-driven approach, adoption of the Gender
Equity Advisory services was limited as these services only became recently
available in 2021 and cooperatives opted not to prioritize these until 2023.
Therefore, there was limited data to understand how these activities may be
influencing cooperative operations, gender dynamics and roles, and perception
of women engaged in the coffee value chain at the time of this study. We
present several recommendations for areas of future research and
considerations for Root Capital to strengthen its approach to gender equity
programming. |