Sweetpotato in diverse economies: Women farmers in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam

Linking smallholder farmers to markets has been one of the major approaches to improving food security. This approach is often combined with women’s empowerment as well by emphasizing women’s greater involvement in market-oriented agriculture. However, it implicitly undervalues women’s roles in...

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Autores principales: Kawarazuka, Nozomi, Bui, Trang
Formato: Informe técnico
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: International Potato Center 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/116407
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author Kawarazuka, Nozomi
Bui, Trang
author_browse Bui, Trang
Kawarazuka, Nozomi
author_facet Kawarazuka, Nozomi
Bui, Trang
author_sort Kawarazuka, Nozomi
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Linking smallholder farmers to markets has been one of the major approaches to improving food security. This approach is often combined with women’s empowerment as well by emphasizing women’s greater involvement in market-oriented agriculture. However, it implicitly undervalues women’s roles in non-market-oriented agriculture and unpaid family labor. This is partly because current mainstream value-chain analyses are premised on a capitalist economy that separates production from the non-capitalist form of all activities. The aim of this study is to gain a more nuanced understanding of non- or less-market oriented agricultural activities led by women farmers and the oft-neglected value of these activities in rural households. The study employs the concept of diverse economies which consider non-market-oriented activities as part of various economic systems, including subsistence farming, exchange of food, and exchange of labor. A case study was conducted in a community in the Ha Tinh province in Vietnam in April 2021, when COVID-19 had little impact on agriculture. Findings show that women manage non-market-oriented sweetpotato production, which is central to maintaining a local seed system, a reciprocal support system, and livestock production. Furthermore, women choose the best varieties of sweetpotato and use their own social networks for obtaining planting materials and distributing the sweetpotato harvest, enabling women to control both agricultural production and the distribution of benefits. In this context, shifting to commercial agriculture is not a desired form of agricultural development for women. Interventions in agricultural value chains require careful considerations of women’s aspirations and household strategies embedded in broad production and reproduction within extended and intergenerational family relations.
format Informe técnico
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language Inglés
publishDate 2021
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publisherStr International Potato Center
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spelling CGSpace1164072025-11-06T13:52:36Z Sweetpotato in diverse economies: Women farmers in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam Kawarazuka, Nozomi Bui, Trang sweet potatoes gender farmers Linking smallholder farmers to markets has been one of the major approaches to improving food security. This approach is often combined with women’s empowerment as well by emphasizing women’s greater involvement in market-oriented agriculture. However, it implicitly undervalues women’s roles in non-market-oriented agriculture and unpaid family labor. This is partly because current mainstream value-chain analyses are premised on a capitalist economy that separates production from the non-capitalist form of all activities. The aim of this study is to gain a more nuanced understanding of non- or less-market oriented agricultural activities led by women farmers and the oft-neglected value of these activities in rural households. The study employs the concept of diverse economies which consider non-market-oriented activities as part of various economic systems, including subsistence farming, exchange of food, and exchange of labor. A case study was conducted in a community in the Ha Tinh province in Vietnam in April 2021, when COVID-19 had little impact on agriculture. Findings show that women manage non-market-oriented sweetpotato production, which is central to maintaining a local seed system, a reciprocal support system, and livestock production. Furthermore, women choose the best varieties of sweetpotato and use their own social networks for obtaining planting materials and distributing the sweetpotato harvest, enabling women to control both agricultural production and the distribution of benefits. In this context, shifting to commercial agriculture is not a desired form of agricultural development for women. Interventions in agricultural value chains require careful considerations of women’s aspirations and household strategies embedded in broad production and reproduction within extended and intergenerational family relations. 2021-11 2021-11-30T19:12:54Z 2021-11-30T19:12:54Z Report https://hdl.handle.net/10568/116407 en Open Access application/pdf International Potato Center Kawarazuka, N. and Bui, T. 2021. Sweetpotato in diverse economies: Women farmers in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam. A technical report. International Potato Center: Lima, Peru. 17 pp.
spellingShingle sweet potatoes
gender
farmers
Kawarazuka, Nozomi
Bui, Trang
Sweetpotato in diverse economies: Women farmers in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam
title Sweetpotato in diverse economies: Women farmers in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam
title_full Sweetpotato in diverse economies: Women farmers in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam
title_fullStr Sweetpotato in diverse economies: Women farmers in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam
title_full_unstemmed Sweetpotato in diverse economies: Women farmers in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam
title_short Sweetpotato in diverse economies: Women farmers in Ha Tinh province, Vietnam
title_sort sweetpotato in diverse economies women farmers in ha tinh province vietnam
topic sweet potatoes
gender
farmers
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/116407
work_keys_str_mv AT kawarazukanozomi sweetpotatoindiverseeconomieswomenfarmersinhatinhprovincevietnam
AT buitrang sweetpotatoindiverseeconomieswomenfarmersinhatinhprovincevietnam