Agricultural Value Chains and Gender in the Post-reform Era: A Review

This article systematically reviewed literature on agricultural market reforms, value chains and gender, selected from Global South developing countries to generate evidence on the changes in smallholder agricultural value chains and gender relations, following liberalization reforms. The study identified and critically analysed previous attempts to categorize agricultural value chains and provided new value chain categorizations as: ‘Traditional’, ‘Digitally-led’, ‘Group-led’ and ‘Firm-led’ value chains. The main finding was that unequal gender relations are inherent in all forms of value chains but tend to be experienced differently by value chain actors depending on the type of value chain, with underlying factors including patriarchal structures, social norms, and gender disparities in education and income.