Farm to Factory Gendered employment: The case of Blue Skies Outgrower Scheme in Ghana.

Abstract

Since the 1980s, a neoliberal paradigm has guided agricultural policy formulation in Africa with an unflinching preference for the commercialization of agriculture through the incorporation of smallholder farmers into global circuits of accumulation via outgrower arrangements. The paradigm has claimed that the promotion of integrated value chains will create jobs and enhance incomes in agrarian areas. This article assesses the manner in which men and women are positioned differentially in the outgrower value chains in terms of employment benefits. Drawing on interviews, the article explores the employment pattern in the outgrower value chain system and the structural dynamics that lead to benefits, or otherwise, for men and women in Ghana’s largest fruit-processing company, Blue Skies, and its outgrower farms. This study finds that many jobs were created along the value chain for men and women, but that men have occupied the high-earning echelon of the value chain as outgrowers, as well as more secure positions as permanent staff in the factory, women have largely been employed as disposable casual workers in these two spaces.