69. Reducing the Gender Data Gap - IWCA Releases New Estimates

Mar. 6, 2017

Harvesting coffee. Photo credit: R. Church

As chairperson of the IWCA Research Alliance, I'm excited for the latest post on IWCA's blog: Click here.

The blog shares the following new estimates of female coffee producers by country:
Rwanda: 113,846, 32% of total
Costa Rica: 15,450, 34% of the total
El Salvador: 6,700, 33% of total
Guatemala: 4,000 - 7,000, 19 - 22% of total
(Sources detailed below.)

It was surprising to me, and today many others express astonishment, that the number of women in the coffee value chain is not tracked by more organizations. As the IWCA blog shares, the ICO does not track it. Neither does CQI, SCAA, SCAE, NCA, the World Bank, ACDI-VOCA, Technoseve nor any of the other international organizations one might think would be concerned with such estimates. But many national organizations do dedicate resources to this kind of research. 

This portion copied from IWCA's blog:
The IWCA Research Alliance recognized the need and utilizes IWCA's uniquely well-suited volunteer structure for tackling this gender data gap. 

SOURCES: 

• From Rwanda, IWCA's volunteer Zafarani Uwingabire, identified the number of female producers in the 2015 coffee census report published by Rwanda's National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB), which was released in May 2016.
• From Costa Rica, volunteer Gabriela Soto gathered the estimate from Instituto del Cafe de Costa Rica (ICAFE). As is often the case in research, her "result" raised as many questions as it answered. How valid is this number? Does it include names of women who may be 'registered' as coffee farmers, but in reality are never on the farm? Does it include all the small producers, even if they are not registered? 
• For Guatemala, volunteer Blanca Castro met with Anacafe and Luisa Fernanda Correa Mancia, one of Anacafe's technicians, shared their current estimates from two different sources. One, from the small producers organization put the percentage of women producers higher than the estimate from the database of registered producers during last harvest 2016/2017.

  

  Mothers and coffee farmers.
  Photo credit: Higher Grounds Coffee Trading

• For El Salvador, volunteer Maria Botto, who is a coffee producer herself, dug into her own records from the Consejo (El Salvador's national extension group) to find the figures they published for 2013. The Consejo is in touch with Ms. Botto to share updated numbers later this year.

Acting as the platform in coffee focused on organizing, researching, training and empowering women in coffee, the IWCA has established legal chapters now in 20 producing countries. [Learn more about IWCA's 20 chapters here.] The organization proudly collaborates with many actors across the industry to celebrate International Women's Day on March 8, 2017.

Preparion for fertilizer. Photo credit: R. Church

Supporting families and homes. Photo credit: R. Church

Sorting. Photo credit: R. Church

Transporting. Photo credit: R. Church

Getting paid. Photo credit: R. Church

34.7 "They say wealth is in the soil...."

Aug. 12, 2015
Michelle Hockett's master's thesis paper from 2014 gives new perspectives on the challenge of encouraging innovation among smallholder farmers in Africa, especially female farmers. The full title of the research paper is, "They say wealth is in the soil": Local Knowledge and Agricultural Experimentation Among Smallholder Farmers in Central Malawi. I find this topic fascinating because "innovation" and "experimentation" are not discussed much in the literature on improving coffee farmer livelihoods, but it should be. In other businesses, the "innovation imperative" is discussed and promoted constantly, and even in specialty coffee, buyers I've talked to are not shy about the fact that they strongly encourage suppliers to innovate.


Michelle studied in the Community Sustainability department at Michigan State University, which is where I study. So while I never met Michelle personally, I saw her poster display and I know some of the faculty on her advisory committee (all top notch)!

The study finds that Malawian farmers across a range of socioeconomic characteristics are inclined to experiment. While experimental methods differ between farmers, there are commonalities in the drivers of experimentation, including climate change, income generation and improving household nutrition. Recommendations forthcoming from the research results include suggestions to take farmers' current practices into account in the development and implementation of agricultural intervention projects. In Malawi, Hockett notes that when current practices are considered, intervention projects work more effectively and smallholder farming systems are improved.

Points to consider for smallholder coffee projects:
* Take farmers' current practices into account
* Assume the farmers are inclined to experiment and innovate
* Do not assume farmers all innovate the same way or for the same reasons

19. IWCA Event1: Launch of the new IWCA Research Alliance sub-committee

Kick-off meeting of the IWCA Research Alliance at SCAA 2015 - planning a strategy for reducing the gender data gap in coffee

Top: 8 volunteers from around the world meet to discuss IWCA response to Gender Data Gap (not pictured, Mark Inman and Ruth Ann Church).
Bottom (L to R): Daniele Giovannucci (COSA), Mark Inman (Olam and IWCA board member), Marcus Young (Sustainable Harvest/Bloomberg grant program in Rwanda), Adam Wilson (formerly ThriveSupply), Ruth Ann Church (Artisan Coffee Imports), Julenia Maria Lopes da Silva (Brazilian coffee producer), Blanca Castro (ITC consultant/Damos), not pictured, Dr. Norbert Wilson (Auburn University)

April 17, 2015
On April 10 at the SCAA in Seattle, eight volunteers were able to gather to discuss how IWCA might address the Gender Data Gap in coffee -- specifically to decide whether to address the topic: "how many women are there in coffee?"  As co-chair of the IWCA Research and Education Relations Committee, Ruth Ann Church convened the group with the objective to address this "number of women" question for each country where IWCA has a chapter.

Each representative first shared from their own experience what activities they were involved in related to women in coffee. Then, Daniele Giovannucci, as founder of the Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA, www.thecosa.org), provided invaluable insights that the committee welcomed. COSA has been managing international data collection that has scientific integrity from coffee producers around the world for over 5 years and Daniele brings a career of experience from the United Nations and other multi-lateral organizations.  And yet, even he admits, his data is inadequate to estimate the number of women in coffee in the countries where COSA has worked. This fact alone tells volumes about how challenging this effort is, why it has not been done yet, and why it will take some time to change this situation.

Outcomes from the meeting can be summarized as follows:
1. Estimates not "exact numbers". The experience around the table confirmed that when discussing numbers of coffee households, numbers of men and women in coffee -- every group today is using estimates, and sometimes quite poor ones. So we should not expect to achieve exact numbers for women. Rather, our objective is to determine "credible estimates."

2. An IWCA program - The 1 hour discussion outlined three plausible, but different, directions the committee might go.
A. Ask In-country Institutions - ask the in-country institutions that already collect coffee-related data, such as agricultural extension agencies, universities, research centers, producer associations (like FNC), etc. Ask them for their best estimates of the number of women in coffee in their country.
B. Write Case Studies -- address the issue through case studies on a country-by-country basis. This would be more of a story-telling approach. By outlining the difficulty in understanding the "number of women" in coffee in a particular country, the broader situation and cultural context of women and their role in coffee would also be described.
C. Partner with an NGO - groups like the gender group at the United Nations or a university center, such as the William Davidson Institute were mentioned.

The committee's leadership will review the options and begin moving forward with one. Look for future updates here and on the IWCA website: www.womenincoffee.org.