This article demonstrates the necessity of looking at gender as a major
analytical category in the analysis of agricultural development. Contrary
to other production systems like plantations and state farms, it is
characteristic of smaliholder outgrower schemes that their operation is
based on the farmers' control over land and labour. However, this study
of smallholder tea production in Kericho District, Kenya shows that men
do not automatically control their wives' labour. In the survey area, onethird
of all tea plots were partly or completely neglected largely because
of conflicts between spouses. The problem of low productivity in
smaliholder tea production is thus intimately linked to the prevailing
gender relations in a local community, a factor characteristically ignored
by studies of smaliholder contract farming which tend to focus narrowly
on technical, institutional and economic factors.
