Reasons for trying
to improve the position of women as coffee producers:
Social justice
It is widely accepted that women farmers make a large contribution
to the production of coffee on the smallholder farm, but
derive a disproportionately low financial benefit from their
work, because most coffee is owned and sold by men, who
do not reliably share the earnings with their wives. This
constitutes a social injustice that Gumutindo would like
to change.
Improved family health, nutrition,
education and harmony
It is also known that where women dispose of a significant
proportion of family income, family members benefit from
improved health, nutrition and education. Where men dispose
of income, far more is spent outside the family.
Additionally, if a woman takes some of her
husband’s coffee to sell, or even if she merely asks
what he has done with the money from the sale of the crop,
she risks family disharmony at best, and domestic violence
at worst. Agreeing between the husband and wife to increase
the woman’s share of income from coffee will radically
reduce these risks.
Sustainability of the supply chain
The ownership of coffee in Uganda is dominated by aging
men. Women by and large do not own the land or the trees
on which coffee is grown. Young people increasingly do not
follow their parents into smallholder farming, which they
see as a poverty trap. If women can directly benefit from
the coffee they produce or help to produce, this will make
smallholder cashcrop farming more sustainable into the future.
It will also tend to improve the quality
and yield of cashcrops, since it is largely the work of
women which influences this, and women are likely to take
more trouble if it means money in their own pocket (to be
spent on the family) rather than just in their husbands’.
Once it becomes clear to everyone that Gumutindo
can pay an additional premium for the best quality coffee
from its women members, this will encourage women coffee
farmers to grow and sell more coffee, and will encourage
husbands to help their wives to do so. |
