Studies estimate that if women had equal access to resources, their yields could increase by 20% to 30%.
Ask African governments how they feel about agricultural innovation and their answer might surprise you.
“They’re tired,” says Vanessa Adams, vice-president of Strategic Partnerships at AGRA, an organisation that aims to improve the adaptation of agri-food and farming systems to climate change. “They don’t want any more pilot programmes. Innovations that benefit 5 000 people are wonderful, but the government would prefer innovations that benefit 50 million.”
The labour required for scale is already there — 60% of the sub-Saharan African population works as smallholder farmers — many of them women — contributing almost 25% of the region’s GDP. But policy, cultural values and traditions, and lack of access to finance and productivity-improving techniques, still hold the sector back, particularly because these factors block women from making their full contribution.
Women farmers tend to have lower productivity than men due to limited access to essential resources, including land, credit, fertiliser, technology and training. Yet studies estimate that, if women had equal access to productive resources, their yields could increase by 20% to 30%, resulting in a 2.5% to 4% lift in total agricultural output.
That’s a substantial number and one worth focusing on. But scalable models that tap into the potential of women farmers are few and far between. One worth noting is shea.
Lessons from shea a blueprint for scaling
Growing wild across much of West Africa, shea trees produce a fruit which yields a butter widely used in cosmetics and food. Its place as a critical ingredient in the multibillion-dollar skincare and food industries keeps the demand high and steady.
Such massive demand requires massive, intensive labour. According to the Global Shea Alliance, “16 million women living in rural communities individually collect fresh shea fruits and kernel for processing” each year.
However — as is common for many women working in Africa’s agricultural sector — women harvesting and processing shea are significantly underpaid for their work. The lowest-paid in the shea value chain, they earn on average $234 a year.
As Marie Veyrier of the Global Shea Alliance explains, working alone often limits women’s income and market access.
Fix what’s broken; improve women’s access to markets
By supporting women to move from producing raw materials to processing higher-value products — like turning fruits into dried snacks or shea into cosmetics — their income increases and their businesses become more confident and scalable. This approach addresses the lack of market access and the perception that small businesses are too risky for corporate buyers.
Like many African exports — cocoa, coffee, cashews, cotton — raw shea is significantly less valuable than its processed form. Prices fluctuate, but one tonne of raw shea is valued at around $400. On the other hand, one tonne of processed shea butter is valued at over $2 000. And stearin, a chemical extracted from raw shea used in cosmetics, can fetch over $6 000 per tonne.
Local processing not only turns a low-income product into a high-value one, but also ensures communities enjoy greater economic gains. Over half of all shea processing occurs on the African continent itself, with 10% done by village-based processors.
“I’ve seen farmers get far better contracts with corporations when they process their goods,” says Frida Owinga, founder of PassionProfit. “These contracts can be genuinely life-changing.”
The power of community and collaboration
The shea industry also showcases an approach that has worked well to boost women entrepreneurs and farmers working in the shea industry — the power of collective approaches, such as a co-operative structure. Veyrier says, “A co-operative is inclusive and gives the women involved far more market power.”
In some cases, women have earned 50% more through co-operatives than they did selling shea individually. These co-ops also support knowledge-sharing, buffer against price shocks and create a pathway into formal markets. This sort of micro-scaling is easily replicable. It benefits not just the co-ops themselves but the surrounding communities too.
But a 50% increase on $234 is just $351. The World Bank’s poverty line is $3 per person per day or $1 095 a year. We need to find additional ways to add significant, scalable value.
Cut red tape and harness technology and market intelligence
Effective scaling in agriculture requires an enabling environment, which much of Africa does not yet have. As Dr Nugun Jellason of Teesside University in England notes: across Africa, “high interest rates and underdeveloped microloan systems prevent smallholder farmers from scaling farming operations”.
This situation is worse for women who are often viewed as higher-risk borrowers by traditional banks — despite evidence to the contrary. Women can also lack access to collateral, particularly due to traditional land rights and property laws that favour men.
Fortunately, the rise of digital technology and mobile banking has made it more feasible for financial institutions to assess an entrepreneur’s financial health and offer credit. For example, more financial institutions are starting to offer unsecured loans to women, basing their lending decisions on cash flow rather than physical collateral.
These kinds of innovations across the value chain can be critical to unlocking agricultural innovation in which women are, surely, the key. One commentator in a recent Dunning Africa Centre webinar commented that simply by getting women more engaged economically, we could potentially double economic activity almost instantly.
The story of shea shows what’s possible. But it’s still only the story of a specific crop, in a specific part of the continent. Support across the agricultural value chain, across the entirety of Africa, is key. The current mode is unsustainable. If 65% of our labour force works in agriculture, we shouldn’t make up just 2% of global agriculture exports and we shouldn’t be the most import-reliant continent in the world when it comes to food.
We have the land and the labour to scale. Now, we just need to invest in infrastructure and provide tools — physical, digital and financial — that empower smallholders to move up the value chain. And it starts with enabling women to step up as equal contributors.
The path to scale lies not in more pilots, but in empowering the millions of women who are already doing the work and giving them the tools and support to drive an agricultural revolution from the ground up.
Rajneesh Narula (OBE) is director of the Dunning Africa Centre at Henley Business School where he is a professor in international business. He is also an expert contributor on the B20 taskforces: trade and investment; industrial transformation and innovation.