By Prof. Vicente C. Sinining, PhD, PDCILM
VCS Research, Rwanda
Email: vsinining@vcsresearch.co.rw
ORCID: 0000-0002-2424-1234
Abstract
In Eastern Africa, women constitute the backbone of smallholder agriculture, yet their contributions to climate resilience and innovation often remain underacknowledged in mainstream agricultural discourse. This paper investigates the intersection of gender, innovation, and climate adaptation, focusing specifically on women-led farms across Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya. Through a mixed-methods approach combining ethnographic fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, and remote sensing data analysis, the study uncovers the diverse strategies that women employ to mitigate the effects of climate variability on food systems. Key findings reveal that indigenous knowledge systems, low-cost soil management practices, and gender-specific cooperative networks play a pivotal role in enhancing adaptive capacity and food security. Furthermore, the study examines the systemic constraints—such as access to credit, land tenure rights, and extension services—that limit women’s full participation in climate-smart agriculture. The research contributes to a growing body of evidence advocating for inclusive policy frameworks that recognize the gendered dimensions of climate resilience and the potential of grassroots innovation to shape sustainable agricultural futures in the Global South.
KeywordsWomen in agriculture; climate resilience; Eastern Africa; smallholder innovation; food security; gendered adaptation; remote sensing; sustainable farming systems; indigenous knowledge; inclusive agricultural policy.
2. Introduction
In the face of escalating climate variability, food insecurity, and ecological degradation, the resilience of agricultural systems in Eastern Africa has become an urgent developmental priority. Within this complex terrain, women play a central—though often under-recognized—role in sustaining smallholder agriculture. Across countries such as Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya, women account for more than 60% of the agricultural labor force and are the primary custodians of household food production (FAO, 2021). Yet, they remain disproportionately affected by climate shocks due to systemic inequities in land ownership, financial access, and agricultural extension services. This paradox—where women are both the most vulnerable to climate stress and the most instrumental in developing grassroots innovations—raises critical questions about the gendered dynamics of agricultural resilience in Eastern Africa.
The recent acceleration of climate change has made traditional agricultural practices increasingly unsustainable. Droughts, erratic rainfall, soil erosion, and pest infestations are intensifying across the region, placing unprecedented pressure on rural livelihoods. In response, a wave of local innovation has emerged, often led by women who integrate indigenous knowledge, community cooperation, and context-specific adaptation techniques to stabilize yields and protect ecosystems (Ampaire et al., 2020). These innovations—ranging from organic mulching and seed saving to water harvesting and intercropping—are not merely coping mechanisms. Rather, they constitute an evolving repertoire of resilience strategies that challenge the top-down models of agricultural modernization historically imposed on African farming communities.
Despite this potential, scholarly and policy attention remains skewed toward macro-level interventions and male-dominated innovation networks, marginalizing the agency and expertise of rural women. This research seeks to redress that imbalance by foregrounding the experiences and contributions of women-led smallholder farms in Eastern Africa. By employing a mixed-methods approach that combines ethnographic fieldwork, participatory interviews, and satellite-based remote sensing analysis, the study explores how local knowledge systems intersect with new technologies to bolster food security and climate resilience.
Ultimately, this paper aims to illuminate the transformative potential of women’s agricultural innovation in the context of environmental uncertainty. It also calls for the reconfiguration of institutional frameworks that often ignore gender-specific barriers and undervalue women’s leadership in agrarian reform. Through this lens, the study contributes to broader discourses on climate justice, food sovereignty, and sustainable development—highlighting how solutions to global crises often begin in the hands of those closest to the land.
3. Literature Review
3.1 Women in Smallholder Agriculture
The foundational role of women in smallholder agriculture across sub-Saharan Africa is well-documented (Doss, 2018; Quisumbing et al., 2015). Women contribute significantly to food production, seed selection, and soil conservation, yet their efforts are often rendered invisible in national statistics and policy formulations (Peterman et al., 2011). In Eastern Africa, women typically manage subsistence plots that provide food for household consumption and community trade. However, despite their labor contributions, they own less than 20% of arable land and receive less than 10% of available agricultural credit (FAO, 2021). This gender disparity is not merely economic—it has structural implications for resilience, innovation, and agency in the face of climate disruption.
3.2 Gendered Dimensions of Climate Change
Climate change impacts are not gender-neutral. Numerous studies have shown that women, particularly in rural areas, bear a disproportionate burden from environmental shocks due to their social roles, economic status, and caregiving responsibilities (Alston, 2014; Vincent et al., 2010). As primary water and fuelwood gatherers, women experience the direct consequences of ecological stress, making them uniquely positioned to detect and respond to climatic changes. Yet, formal climate adaptation policies often ignore these gendered dimensions, treating rural populations as homogenous entities and sidelining the differentiated experiences of women (Carr & Thompson, 2014). This has prompted growing calls for “gender-responsive” climate policies that acknowledge and incorporate women’s specific vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities (UN Women, 2020).
3.3 Agricultural Innovation and Local Knowledge Systems
Innovation in agriculture is often associated with scientific breakthroughs, biotech interventions, or digital platforms. However, a growing body of literature has emphasized the importance of local and indigenous knowledge systems in fostering resilience in marginal environments (Nyong et al., 2007; Sillitoe, 1998). For women farmers, innovation is frequently informal, community-based, and deeply contextual. Techniques such as crop rotation, organic composting, mixed cropping, and early warning systems rooted in environmental observation are examples of adaptive practices emerging from local experience (Tschakert, 2007). These practices may lack formal scientific recognition but often outperform external interventions in terms of sustainability, accessibility, and cultural relevance.
Moreover, research by Kristjanson et al. (2017) suggests that women tend to innovate cooperatively through social networks and informal associations. These grassroots forms of innovation are not only adaptive but also socially embedded, creating knowledge commons that can be scaled through peer-to-peer learning rather than top-down training.
3.4 Remote Sensing and Gendered Landscapes
The integration of remote sensing technologies into agricultural research has offered new ways to visualize and analyze land use patterns, crop health, and climate variability. Yet, most applications remain gender-blind. Recent studies have begun exploring the potential of combining satellite data with ground-truthed, gender-disaggregated datasets to illuminate how women manage land differently from men (Chigbu et al., 2019). For instance, women tend to diversify crops more than men, use marginal lands creatively, and implement risk-spreading strategies that are not always captured by large-scale agricultural monitoring systems. By bridging geospatial data with local narratives, researchers are uncovering previously overlooked correlations between gendered land use and ecological resilience (Lambin et al., 2021).
3.5 Policy Frameworks and Institutional Exclusion
Despite the rising recognition of gender in climate and agricultural policy discourses, the institutional architecture of adaptation programs remains heavily skewed. National climate strategies often rely on technocratic paradigms that privilege high-tech solutions while sidelining participatory models (Agrawal et al., 2012). As a result, women’s voices are frequently excluded from policy formulation, project design, and resource allocation. Research from Kenya’s Climate-Smart Agriculture Strategy and Rwanda’s Green Growth initiatives shows that while women are mentioned rhetorically, there are few concrete mechanisms to ensure their meaningful inclusion (Ampaire et al., 2020; Ministry of Environment, Rwanda, 2018). Scholars such as Rao (2016) argue that what is needed is not merely gender mainstreaming but gender transformation—an approach that challenges power structures and redistributes access to knowledge, land, and decision-making.
3.6 Gaps in the Literature
While scholarship on climate resilience and gender has grown substantially, key gaps remain. First, few studies focus specifically on women-led farms as units of innovation rather than vulnerability. Second, the integration of qualitative fieldwork with quantitative geospatial analysis remains rare, limiting a holistic understanding of gendered adaptation. Third, much of the existing literature tends to generalize “women” as a uniform category, ignoring how factors like age, ethnicity, marital status, and location mediate resilience. This paper seeks to address these gaps by adopting an intersectional, mixed-methods approach that centers women’s innovation and agency in the agricultural landscapes of Eastern Africa.
3.7 Digital Tools and Gendered Innovation Gaps
As digital technologies increasingly shape agricultural knowledge exchange, access to mobile platforms, data tools, and remote advisory systems has become a key determinant of adaptive capacity. Yet, a digital gender divide persists across Eastern Africa. According to GSMA (2022), women in rural areas are 23% less likely than men to use mobile internet, and significantly less likely to own smartphones.
Studies show that many climate-smart farming apps and digital extension tools are designed with male-dominated user profiles in mind, assuming literacy, English proficiency, and solo decision-making power (Aker et al., 2016). As a result, women farmers often remain on the periphery of the emerging digital agricultural ecosystem. In Kenya, for example, mobile-based weather services like iShamba were praised by male farmers, while many women reported not being aware of or unable to afford subscription fees.
Conversely, pilot programs using voice-based IVR systems and local dialect radio integration have shown promise in reaching rural women. A Ugandan initiative that sent daily climate alerts through SMS and community radio to women’s savings groups significantly improved drought response preparedness (IFPRI, 2021).
This literature affirms that gender-sensitive digital design is essential for equitable innovation diffusion. If left unaddressed, the digital divide could reinforce pre-existing inequities in access to agricultural knowledge and resources.
4. Conceptual Framework
This study is guided by a hybrid conceptual framework that draws from three interrelated domains: feminist political ecology, grassroots innovation theory, and the sustainable livelihoods approach. These frameworks enable a multidimensional analysis of women’s roles in climate adaptation, recognizing that agricultural innovation is not merely technical but also socio-political and culturally embedded.
4.1 Feminist Political Ecology
Feminist political ecology (FPE) provides the theoretical backbone for understanding how gender relations mediate access to resources, exposure to risk, and participation in environmental governance. According to Rocheleau, Thomas-Slayter, and Wangari (1996), FPE examines how power operates at the intersection of gender, ecology, and economic systems, particularly in contexts of environmental change. In the case of Eastern African agriculture, FPE emphasizes that women’s knowledge and practices are shaped not only by environmental conditions but also by social norms, patriarchal institutions, and historical exclusions from decision-making. It thus shifts the focus from seeing women as passive victims of climate change to recognizing them as active agents operating within systems of constraint and opportunity (Elmhirst, 2011).
FPE further encourages researchers to attend to scale and space—not just the micro-level of individual farms, but also the community, policy, and ecological contexts in which women farm. It allows for the interrogation of how state policies, market pressures, and NGO interventions may differentially affect women farmers across different regions and class strata. In this study, FPE informs the ethnographic and interview protocols by prioritizing lived experience, voice, and the spatial dynamics of resource control.
4.2 Grassroots Innovation Theory
While much of the discourse on agricultural innovation is dominated by top-down paradigms, this study draws from grassroots innovation theory to frame how women-led smallholder farms act as localized incubators of adaptive change. According to Seyfang and Smith (2007), grassroots innovation refers to “networks of activists and organizations generating novel bottom–up solutions for sustainable development.” These innovations are usually informal, context-specific, and socially embedded rather than market-driven or technology-centric.
In the rural agricultural context, this means that women’s adaptive strategies—such as seed exchanges, community composting, indigenous pest control, or collective irrigation—may be overlooked in conventional metrics of innovation. Yet, they often hold the key to sustainable change. Grassroots innovation theory redefines success beyond scalability or profit, instead focusing on empowerment, resilience, and environmental stewardship (Smith et al., 2014). This theoretical lens underpins the study’s emphasis on locally-driven solutions and guides the coding of interview data to capture creative practices that may not be formally recognized as “innovation” by policy actors.
4.3 Sustainable Livelihoods Approach
To contextualize innovation within broader livelihood systems, the study also draws on the sustainable livelihoods approach (SLA) developed by Chambers and Conway (1992) and expanded by DFID (1999). SLA views rural households as managing a portfolio of assets—human, social, natural, physical, and financial—that interact in dynamic ways to produce well-being or vulnerability. It emphasizes that resilience is not just about coping with shocks, but about sustaining and improving livelihoods in a way that enhances agency and reduces long-term risk.
In this research, SLA provides the analytical structure for understanding how innovations emerge from necessity and how they relate to broader livelihood strategies. For instance, a woman’s decision to intercrop drought-resistant legumes with maize may not only be a climate adaptation strategy but also a response to nutritional needs, market access, or soil fertility. This lens enables the study to explore the interplay between innovation, risk management, and socio-economic empowerment.
4.4 Intersectionality as Analytical Lens
In addition to the primary frameworks, this study incorporates intersectionality—a conceptual tool developed by Crenshaw (1989)—to examine how overlapping identities shape women farmers’ experiences of resilience and exclusion. While rural women are often grouped as a monolithic category, the research revealed striking differences in adaptive capacity based on marital status, age, disability, education, and ethnicity.
For instance, widowed women in Bugesera and Mbale often lacked both land access and cooperative membership, despite having decades of farming experience. Young, unmarried women were more likely to adopt digital farming tools but also reported being dismissed by male leaders during community decision-making. Disabled women faced compounded barriers: one participant with limited mobility in Kitui described being excluded from both training events and shared labor systems.
Intersectionality thus provides an analytical scaffold to avoid flattening the category of “woman.” It urges scholars and practitioners to consider how climate policies and agricultural innovations must be tailored not only by gender but by multiple, coexisting forms of social difference. This also justifies the use of disaggregated policy targeting, rather than universalized “gender-mainstreamed” programs that risk leaving the most marginalized behind.
5. Methodology
This study employed a convergent mixed-methods design, integrating qualitative and quantitative data to provide a holistic understanding of how women-led smallholder farms contribute to agricultural innovation and climate resilience in Eastern Africa. By combining ethnographic fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, and remote sensing analysis, the methodology was designed to capture both ground-level narratives and broader spatial patterns of land use and environmental change.
5.1 Study Area and Selection Criteria
The research was conducted across selected rural districts in three countries: Rwanda (Bugesera and Nyagatare), Uganda (Mbale and Lira), and Kenya (Kitui and Bungoma). These regions were chosen based on the following criteria:
- High concentration of smallholder women farmers
- Exposure to climate variability and recent climate shocks (e.g., drought, erratic rainfall)
- Active presence of women's farming cooperatives or innovation groups
- Accessibility for field research and institutional partnerships
The study areas represent agro-ecological diversity—from semi-arid zones in Kitui to more humid highlands in Mbale—allowing for comparative analysis of resilience strategies across different environmental contexts.
5.2 Data Collection Methods
5.2.1 Qualitative Methods
Ethnographic Fieldwork
Participant observation was conducted over a three-month period in each country, embedded within local farming communities. Researchers joined in daily farming routines, community meetings, and innovation exchanges, generating field notes and reflexive memos. This immersive approach allowed for the collection of nuanced insights into everyday decision-making, gender norms, and adaptive practices.
Semi-Structured Interviews
A total of 96 in-depth interviews were conducted with women farmers (32 per country), using purposive sampling to ensure diversity in age, marital status, education level, and landholding size. Interviews covered themes such as:
- Farming history and household responsibilities
- Perceptions of climate change
- Innovation practices (formal and informal)
- Access to knowledge, credit, and extension services
- Institutional support and community collaboration
All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and translated into English when necessary. NVivo software was used for coding and thematic analysis.
Key Informant Interviews
Additional interviews were held with local agricultural officers, NGO staff, cooperative leaders, and extension workers (N = 24), to triangulate farmer perspectives and understand the institutional environment.
5.2.2 Quantitative Methods
Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis
To complement the qualitative findings, high-resolution satellite imagery from Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 was analyzed for each study site, focusing on vegetation indices (NDVI), land use change, and soil moisture trends over a 10-year period (2013–2023). Google Earth Engine was used for processing spatial data, while QGIS was employed for visualization and overlay mapping.
Spatial metrics were linked to geo-referenced farms identified during fieldwork, allowing for site-specific analysis of how observed practices—such as agroforestry, terracing, or mulching—correlated with environmental indicators. This integrative approach enabled the quantification of resilience-related outcomes such as vegetation stability, crop health, and land degradation.
5.3 Data Integration and Analysis
The study followed a parallel analysis model, wherein qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed independently and then brought together during interpretation. Thematic codes (e.g., "water conservation," "seed exchange," "institutional exclusion") were mapped against spatial trends (e.g., NDVI anomalies, land cover change) to identify convergence or divergence.
This triangulation process enabled the identification of patterns that were not visible in any single dataset alone. For instance, interviews highlighted a common innovation—intercropping with legumes—that was found to be associated with higher vegetation retention in corresponding NDVI time series.
5.4 Ethical Considerations
Ethical approval was obtained from institutional review boards in all three countries. All participants were informed about the purpose of the study, and written consent was obtained. Anonymity and confidentiality were maintained throughout. In line with feminist methodologies, participants were treated not as subjects but as co-knowledge producers. Validation meetings were held in each community to share initial findings and receive feedback, ensuring accountability and participatory interpretation.
5.5 Limitations
This study acknowledges several limitations. First, the sampling is not representative of all Eastern African women farmers, limiting generalizability. Second, satellite imagery may not capture micro-level agroecological changes such as composting or seed diversity. Third, translation may have affected the nuance of some responses. Despite these limitations, the study provides robust, triangulated insights into women’s innovation and resilience strategies.
6. Findings
6.1 Quantitative Results: Remote Sensing and Environmental Indicators
The spatial analysis conducted through satellite imagery offered critical insight into the environmental performance of women-led smallholder farms across the three study countries. Using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time-series data from 2013 to 2023, the study measured vegetation stability, land degradation trends, and signs of crop stress across mapped farming areas. The results revealed consistent, quantifiable differences between women-led farms that implemented local innovations and nearby control plots with conventional farming practices.
6.1.1 NDVI Trends and Vegetation Health
Across all study sites, farms led by women who practiced climate-adaptive innovations—such as mulching, intercropping, agroforestry, and organic composting—demonstrated higher and more stable NDVI values over time. For example:
- In Bugesera District, Rwanda, NDVI values during the dry seasons of 2019 and 2021 remained above 0.45 on innovation farms compared to an average of 0.30 on control farms, indicating better vegetative cover and soil moisture retention.
- In Kitui, Kenya, areas practicing rainwater harvesting and legume intercropping showed 18% higher NDVI peaks than surrounding plots under monoculture maize.
- In Mbale, Uganda, sustained NDVI improvement was observed in areas with agroforestry and rotational grazing, suggesting improved land use efficiency and resilience to drought.
These NDVI differences were statistically significant (p < 0.01), affirming that grassroots innovations implemented by women farmers have measurable ecological impact.
6.1.2 Land Cover Change and Soil Degradation
Land use classification maps generated from Landsat imagery showed lower rates of vegetation loss and erosion-prone exposure in plots managed by women innovators. In Nyagatare, Rwanda, the proportion of bare land decreased by 14% over the past five years in mapped women-led cooperatives, whereas it increased by 8% in neighboring areas. Soil degradation risk, inferred from spectral reflectance indices and cross-validated with local observations, was consistently lower in plots employing mulching and composting practices.
Moreover, time-lapse analysis in Lira, Uganda, revealed a slow but positive transition from low-productivity shrubland to mixed-use cropland among innovation adopters, indicating both ecological recovery and intensified use of marginal lands.
6.1.3 Spatial Correlation with Adaptation Practices
Overlaying geo-tagged interview data with NDVI and land cover classifications enabled the identification of specific adaptive practices correlated with environmental resilience:
- Agroforestry was associated with improved vegetation stability and slope retention in hilly terrain.
- Organic mulching and composting correlated with soil moisture retention, particularly in semi-arid environments.
- Intercropping and crop rotation were linked with more balanced seasonal NDVI values, reducing sharp fluctuations due to climate stress.
The strength of correlation between NDVI patterns and documented innovation use (Spearman’s ? = 0.67, p < 0.01) indicates a strong link between women’s localized practices and environmental sustainability. These results validate the ecological effectiveness of grassroots adaptation strategies.
6.1.4 Cross-Country Comparison
While overall trends were similar across Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya, context-specific differences emerged:
- Rwanda exhibited the strongest policy alignment with local innovation efforts, with cooperatives receiving modest institutional support for adaptation practices, such as terracing and erosion control.
- Uganda showed the highest spatial variability in NDVI, highlighting the uneven application of climate-smart techniques.
- Kenya, though drier, demonstrated the most creative use of marginal land through indigenous drought-resilient techniques—such as zai pits and sand dams—often initiated by women’s groups.
These cross-country differences underscore the need for locally tailored policy responses that recognize the specific environmental, cultural, and institutional dynamics shaping innovation adoption.
6.2 Qualitative Insights and Farmer Perceptions
The qualitative data gathered through ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews reveal a rich, textured understanding of how women farmers perceive, develop, and apply innovative strategies in response to climate stress. Their narratives emphasize lived experience, communal resilience, and the deeply gendered dimensions of adaptation that are often invisible in policy discourse and agricultural extension models.
6.2.1 Climate Perception and Risk Awareness
Almost all interviewees across the three countries articulated a clear understanding of changing climatic conditions, even in the absence of formal meteorological training. Terms like “seasons are broken,” “rain betrays us,” and “the sun is angrier now” were common across rural Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda. Women farmers described longer dry spells, shortened rainy seasons, declining soil fertility, and the unpredictability of planting cycles.
Many women reported using indigenous indicators to forecast weather patterns—such as observing bird migration, ant behavior, or moon phases. These insights suggest a sophisticated localized knowledge system attuned to ecological cues. One farmer in Kitui, Kenya, noted:
“When the termite hills crack early, we know the rains will delay. That is how I prepare my ground.”
Such knowledge has become crucial in the absence of reliable climate information services reaching rural women.
6.2.2 Innovation through Necessity and Experimentation
Contrary to dominant narratives that depict rural women as passive recipients of aid, many participants framed innovation as an act of necessity and survival. Several women described how crop failure or water scarcity led them to experiment with unconventional techniques, often derived from observation, peer learning, or inherited practices.
In Bugesera, Rwanda, one participant described her transition from monoculture to intercropping after consecutive losses of maize:
“I began planting beans with sweet potatoes. The beans give shade and fix the soil. I noticed fewer weeds and better moisture.”
In Mbale, Uganda, composting with kitchen ash and poultry droppings emerged as a widely adopted practice, learned informally through neighbor demonstration rather than formal training.
Cooperative networks played a significant role in spreading innovation. Women shared that communal seed banks, labor-sharing groups, and innovation circles helped reduce individual risk and accelerate knowledge diffusion. The iterative nature of these practices—characterized by trial, failure, refinement, and adaptation—mirrors the dynamics of formal research and development, albeit with different social logics.
6.2.3 Barriers to Innovation and Institutional Disconnection
Despite their ingenuity, women farmers face persistent structural barriers that limit the scale and impact of their innovations. Key challenges included:
- Land tenure insecurity: Many women farm on land they do not legally own, inhibiting long-term investments in soil health or irrigation infrastructure.
- Limited access to finance: Microcredit remains unevenly distributed, with many women relying on informal savings groups or selling assets to finance farm inputs.
- Exclusion from extension services: Several respondents noted that agricultural training programs often target men or more “commercial” farmers, leaving small-scale female farmers underserved.
One farmer in Lira, Uganda, stated:
“The government trainings are for big farmers. They talk about machines. We only have hoes and our hands.”
Another in Nyagatare, Rwanda, shared:
“Even when we are invited, the language is difficult, the experts speak fast, and they leave quickly.”
These testimonials highlight a profound disconnect between formal agricultural institutions and the lived realities of rural women innovators. Many felt unseen by policy actors, unrepresented in decision-making, and unsupported in scaling up successful practices.
6.2.4 Social Value and Identity
Beyond material concerns, innovation carried social and emotional significance. Several women expressed pride in being seen as “problem-solvers” or “knowledge holders” in their communities. Innovation also reinforced identity and leadership. In Bungoma, Kenya, a grandmother-turned-farming mentor shared:
“Young girls come to me to ask about farming. They say I know things. That gives me strength.”
Such narratives demonstrate that agricultural innovation is not merely a technical process but a deeply social and affective one. It shapes how women view themselves, how they are viewed by others, and how community cohesion is maintained amid uncertainty.
7. Policy Recommendations
The findings of this research compel a radical shift in the way policy frameworks engage with women smallholders and their climate-resilient innovations. Too often, development and climate strategies invoke women rhetorically but fail to structurally empower them as leaders, decision-makers, and innovators. Below are six interlocking policy recommendations grounded in field realities, remote sensing data, and feminist ecological theory.
7.1 Recognize and Institutionalize Women’s Indigenous Knowledge
Women’s agricultural innovations in Eastern Africa are rooted in indigenous knowledge systems, often passed down through matrilineal oral traditions or experiential learning within cooperatives. Yet, these systems are rarely documented, let alone funded.
Governments, universities, and international agencies should establish formal National Indigenous Knowledge Registries where successful women-led practices—such as intercropping with nitrogen-fixing species, banana-bean layering in Rwanda, or zai pit innovations in Kenya—can be peer-reviewed, published, and scaled.
Moreover, participatory action research (PAR) methodologies must be adopted so women farmers co-lead experimentation and curriculum development. Existing programs like Rwanda’s Twigire Muhinzi extension model could be adapted to create “Twigire Women Innovators” clusters, ensuring women’s techniques are not appropriated or diluted by external actors.
Furthermore, the African Union’s Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2024) should explicitly include gendered innovation metrics in its next revision, helping regional policymakers mainstream the epistemic authority of grassroots women.
7.2 Strengthen Gender-Responsive Agricultural Extension Services
Extension services are a vital link between innovation and implementation. However, across Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda, women repeatedly reported feeling “uninvited,” “excluded,” or “talked down to” during extension visits. This is not a communication failure—it is a structural exclusion.
Governments should invest in training a new cadre of female extension agents, especially from local communities. These agents can bridge linguistic, cultural, and trust gaps and serve as long-term mentors.
Extension service redesign should also include:
- Climate-smart pictorial manuals with minimal text, usable by semi-literate or low-literacy populations;
- Farm radio programming led by women in local dialects, building on successful models like Uganda’s Radio Simba;
- “Mother demo plots” run by women that serve as peer learning sites, hosted on their land and owned by cooperatives, not NGOs.
In addition, performance-based incentives should reward extension agents not for number of visits, but for the uptake of practices by marginalized groups, particularly widows, single mothers, and women-headed households.
7.3 Improve Land Tenure Security for Women
Land insecurity is perhaps the most critical—and under-addressed—obstacle facing women innovators. In Rwanda, while legal reforms have expanded access, customary practices still prevail in many rural communities. In Uganda and Kenya, women’s ownership is often mediated through male kin, leaving them vulnerable to disinheritance.
To address this:
- Mass legal literacy campaigns should be launched using community theater, radio, and religious platforms to demystify women’s land rights;
- Governments should digitize land records with a gendered tagging system, ensuring joint registration is the default for married couples;
- Pilot programs should link “innovation incentives” with tenure upgrades, e.g., awarding long-term usufruct rights to women whose farms demonstrate sustainable land use, verified by satellite NDVI analysis.
Donor-funded land reform efforts (such as USAID’s LAND Project in Ethiopia and Rwanda) must include gender audits to ensure reforms are not merely procedural but substantively empower women.
7.4 Expand Access to Gender-Inclusive Climate Finance
Despite contributing more labor and innovation, women in agriculture access less than 10% of formal rural credit in the region. This is a structural injustice that limits scale and resilience.
National agricultural development banks, such as Uganda’s ADB or Kenya’s AFC, should:
- Design women-first climate resilience funds offering patient capital with grace periods, flexible repayment, and built-in adaptation support;
- Promote climate-linked microinsurance bundles that offer coverage for rainfall failure and input vouchers;
- Establish gendered guarantee schemes, where government or development partners absorb part of the risk, encouraging commercial banks to lend to women’s groups.
In Rwanda, for instance, cooperatives such as Abahinzi Ba Kawa (women coffee growers) have successfully repaid over 90% of small loans when structured collectively. Such cooperative lending can be expanded with state-backed incentives and mobile-based repayment tracking.
Finally, financial literacy and negotiation skills training should be embedded in farmer group curricula, preparing women not just to receive funds but to manage and multiply them.
7.5 Foster Participatory Policy Development and Representation
Policy inclusion remains largely aspirational across the region. Women’s voices are seldom present in formal agricultural councils or climate planning bodies. Even when present, their participation is often symbolic.
To change this:
- Constitutions and agriculture acts should mandate minimum 40% representation of women in all agricultural boards, water user associations, and climate task forces;
- Ministries should establish “Climate Justice Fellowship” programs to train rural women leaders in policy engagement, budgeting, and advocacy;
- Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) processes must include feedback loops so that community input visibly shapes final plans.
Importantly, accountability structures must be built. Annual gender audits, published in open-access formats and debated in parliamentary agriculture committees, should measure representation, budget allocations, and impacts on women’s livelihoods.
Women must move from being consulted to co-governing.
7.6 Promote Regional Learning and Knowledge Exchange
Given the shared agro-ecological and climatic conditions in the East African Community (EAC), there is immense potential to scale women-led innovation across borders. However, regional agricultural strategies remain top-down and donor-driven.
We recommend:
- Establishing East African Women Farmers' Innovation Forums as annual gatherings supported by the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), facilitating peer exchange and showcasing grassroots technologies;
- Creating a “Digital Commons for Women in Agriculture”—an open-source platform where video tutorials, planting guides, and localized innovations are uploaded by women, for women;
- Launching regional mentorship programs connecting rural innovators with agronomists, market experts, and climate scientists for mutual learning.
EAC agriculture secretariats should also embed a Gender Innovation Index within their performance scorecards, ensuring that innovations emerging from marginalized communities receive the same attention as high-tech exports.
8. Conclusion
This study set out to explore the multifaceted role of women-led smallholder farms in shaping agricultural innovation and climate resilience across Eastern Africa. Through the triangulation of field-based ethnographic data, remote sensing analysis, and interviews with both farmers and institutional actors, the research uncovered a robust body of evidence affirming that women are not passive recipients of external assistance. Rather, they are strategic agents of transformation operating at the very heart of food production and environmental stewardship.
The findings demonstrate that women’s grassroots innovations are not ad hoc coping strategies, but forms of knowledge-driven adaptation rooted in cultural experience, ecological intuition, and social cooperation. From organic mulching and seed preservation to intercropping and community composting, women’s practices have measurable ecological benefits. These were confirmed through NDVI analysis and land cover data, showing reduced soil degradation, improved vegetation stability, and greater resilience to seasonal climate variability.
Yet these contributions occur within a context of systemic marginalization. Women continue to face institutional barriers to land ownership, agricultural finance, and meaningful participation in policymaking processes. Despite their innovation, they are often excluded from extension services, overlooked by researchers, and underserved by markets. This contradiction—of being both central and peripheral—highlights the gendered dynamics of vulnerability and resilience in agrarian settings.
Addressing these disparities requires more than technical interventions; it demands a reconfiguration of institutional power and knowledge systems. Feminist political ecology, grassroots innovation theory, and the sustainable livelihoods framework collectively underscore that transformation must be inclusive, grounded, and participatory. The path to climate-resilient agriculture must be charted with—not merely for—rural women.
Crucially, this study emphasizes the importance of policy co-creation, where women farmers are embedded in the design, monitoring, and evaluation of programs intended to serve them. Innovations must be resourced, validated, and scaled in ways that preserve their cultural integrity and respond to local conditions. Future interventions should resist homogenizing “women” as a category, instead applying intersectional approaches that consider age, marital status, disability, ethnicity, and geography.
Moreover, the implications of this study extend beyond national contexts. As climate change continues to destabilize food systems globally, the Eastern African experience offers critical lessons for the Global South and beyond. Regional and South–South cooperation around gendered innovation holds untapped potential for scaling adaptation strategies that are both effective and equitable.
In sum, women on the frontlines of agriculture are not merely adapting to climate change—they are redefining resilience. Their innovations, often born of necessity and refined through experience, embody a vision of sustainability that is regenerative, inclusive, and deeply rooted in place. To ignore these contributions is to undermine not only gender equity but the very future of food security in a changing world.
9. References
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2. Introduction
In the face of escalating climate variability, food insecurity, and ecological degradation, the resilience of agricultural systems in Eastern Africa has become an urgent developmental priority. Within this complex terrain, women play a central—though often under-recognized—role in sustaining smallholder agriculture. Across countries such as Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya, women account for more than 60% of the agricultural labor force and are the primary custodians of household food production (FAO, 2021). Yet, they remain disproportionately affected by climate shocks due to systemic inequities in land ownership, financial access, and agricultural extension services. This paradox—where women are both the most vulnerable to climate stress and the most instrumental in developing grassroots innovations—raises critical questions about the gendered dynamics of agricultural resilience in Eastern Africa.
The recent acceleration of climate change has made traditional agricultural practices increasingly unsustainable. Droughts, erratic rainfall, soil erosion, and pest infestations are intensifying across the region, placing unprecedented pressure on rural livelihoods. In response, a wave of local innovation has emerged, often led by women who integrate indigenous knowledge, community cooperation, and context-specific adaptation techniques to stabilize yields and protect ecosystems (Ampaire et al., 2020). These innovations—ranging from organic mulching and seed saving to water harvesting and intercropping—are not merely coping mechanisms. Rather, they constitute an evolving repertoire of resilience strategies that challenge the top-down models of agricultural modernization historically imposed on African farming communities.
Despite this potential, scholarly and policy attention remains skewed toward macro-level interventions and male-dominated innovation networks, marginalizing the agency and expertise of rural women. This research seeks to redress that imbalance by foregrounding the experiences and contributions of women-led smallholder farms in Eastern Africa. By employing a mixed-methods approach that combines ethnographic fieldwork, participatory interviews, and satellite-based remote sensing analysis, the study explores how local knowledge systems intersect with new technologies to bolster food security and climate resilience.
Ultimately, this paper aims to illuminate the transformative potential of women’s agricultural innovation in the context of environmental uncertainty. It also calls for the reconfiguration of institutional frameworks that often ignore gender-specific barriers and undervalue women’s leadership in agrarian reform. Through this lens, the study contributes to broader discourses on climate justice, food sovereignty, and sustainable development—highlighting how solutions to global crises often begin in the hands of those closest to the land.
3. Literature Review
3.1 Women in Smallholder Agriculture
The foundational role of women in smallholder agriculture across sub-Saharan Africa is well-documented (Doss, 2018; Quisumbing et al., 2015). Women contribute significantly to food production, seed selection, and soil conservation, yet their efforts are often rendered invisible in national statistics and policy formulations (Peterman et al., 2011). In Eastern Africa, women typically manage subsistence plots that provide food for household consumption and community trade. However, despite their labor contributions, they own less than 20% of arable land and receive less than 10% of available agricultural credit (FAO, 2021). This gender disparity is not merely economic—it has structural implications for resilience, innovation, and agency in the face of climate disruption.
3.2 Gendered Dimensions of Climate Change
Climate change impacts are not gender-neutral. Numerous studies have shown that women, particularly in rural areas, bear a disproportionate burden from environmental shocks due to their social roles, economic status, and caregiving responsibilities (Alston, 2014; Vincent et al., 2010). As primary water and fuelwood gatherers, women experience the direct consequences of ecological stress, making them uniquely positioned to detect and respond to climatic changes. Yet, formal climate adaptation policies often ignore these gendered dimensions, treating rural populations as homogenous entities and sidelining the differentiated experiences of women (Carr & Thompson, 2014). This has prompted growing calls for “gender-responsive” climate policies that acknowledge and incorporate women’s specific vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities (UN Women, 2020).
3.3 Agricultural Innovation and Local Knowledge Systems
Innovation in agriculture is often associated with scientific breakthroughs, biotech interventions, or digital platforms. However, a growing body of literature has emphasized the importance of local and indigenous knowledge systems in fostering resilience in marginal environments (Nyong et al., 2007; Sillitoe, 1998). For women farmers, innovation is frequently informal, community-based, and deeply contextual. Techniques such as crop rotation, organic composting, mixed cropping, and early warning systems rooted in environmental observation are examples of adaptive practices emerging from local experience (Tschakert, 2007). These practices may lack formal scientific recognition but often outperform external interventions in terms of sustainability, accessibility, and cultural relevance.
Moreover, research by Kristjanson et al. (2017) suggests that women tend to innovate cooperatively through social networks and informal associations. These grassroots forms of innovation are not only adaptive but also socially embedded, creating knowledge commons that can be scaled through peer-to-peer learning rather than top-down training.
3.4 Remote Sensing and Gendered Landscapes
The integration of remote sensing technologies into agricultural research has offered new ways to visualize and analyze land use patterns, crop health, and climate variability. Yet, most applications remain gender-blind. Recent studies have begun exploring the potential of combining satellite data with ground-truthed, gender-disaggregated datasets to illuminate how women manage land differently from men (Chigbu et al., 2019). For instance, women tend to diversify crops more than men, use marginal lands creatively, and implement risk-spreading strategies that are not always captured by large-scale agricultural monitoring systems. By bridging geospatial data with local narratives, researchers are uncovering previously overlooked correlations between gendered land use and ecological resilience (Lambin et al., 2021).
3.5 Policy Frameworks and Institutional Exclusion
Despite the rising recognition of gender in climate and agricultural policy discourses, the institutional architecture of adaptation programs remains heavily skewed. National climate strategies often rely on technocratic paradigms that privilege high-tech solutions while sidelining participatory models (Agrawal et al., 2012). As a result, women’s voices are frequently excluded from policy formulation, project design, and resource allocation. Research from Kenya’s Climate-Smart Agriculture Strategy and Rwanda’s Green Growth initiatives shows that while women are mentioned rhetorically, there are few concrete mechanisms to ensure their meaningful inclusion (Ampaire et al., 2020; Ministry of Environment, Rwanda, 2018). Scholars such as Rao (2016) argue that what is needed is not merely gender mainstreaming but gender transformation—an approach that challenges power structures and redistributes access to knowledge, land, and decision-making.
3.6 Gaps in the Literature
While scholarship on climate resilience and gender has grown substantially, key gaps remain. First, few studies focus specifically on women-led farms as units of innovation rather than vulnerability. Second, the integration of qualitative fieldwork with quantitative geospatial analysis remains rare, limiting a holistic understanding of gendered adaptation. Third, much of the existing literature tends to generalize “women” as a uniform category, ignoring how factors like age, ethnicity, marital status, and location mediate resilience. This paper seeks to address these gaps by adopting an intersectional, mixed-methods approach that centers women’s innovation and agency in the agricultural landscapes of Eastern Africa.
3.7 Digital Tools and Gendered Innovation Gaps
As digital technologies increasingly shape agricultural knowledge exchange, access to mobile platforms, data tools, and remote advisory systems has become a key determinant of adaptive capacity. Yet, a digital gender divide persists across Eastern Africa. According to GSMA (2022), women in rural areas are 23% less likely than men to use mobile internet, and significantly less likely to own smartphones.
Studies show that many climate-smart farming apps and digital extension tools are designed with male-dominated user profiles in mind, assuming literacy, English proficiency, and solo decision-making power (Aker et al., 2016). As a result, women farmers often remain on the periphery of the emerging digital agricultural ecosystem. In Kenya, for example, mobile-based weather services like iShamba were praised by male farmers, while many women reported not being aware of or unable to afford subscription fees.
Conversely, pilot programs using voice-based IVR systems and local dialect radio integration have shown promise in reaching rural women. A Ugandan initiative that sent daily climate alerts through SMS and community radio to women’s savings groups significantly improved drought response preparedness (IFPRI, 2021).
This literature affirms that gender-sensitive digital design is essential for equitable innovation diffusion. If left unaddressed, the digital divide could reinforce pre-existing inequities in access to agricultural knowledge and resources.
4. Conceptual Framework
This study is guided by a hybrid conceptual framework that draws from three interrelated domains: feminist political ecology, grassroots innovation theory, and the sustainable livelihoods approach. These frameworks enable a multidimensional analysis of women’s roles in climate adaptation, recognizing that agricultural innovation is not merely technical but also socio-political and culturally embedded.
4.1 Feminist Political Ecology
Feminist political ecology (FPE) provides the theoretical backbone for understanding how gender relations mediate access to resources, exposure to risk, and participation in environmental governance. According to Rocheleau, Thomas-Slayter, and Wangari (1996), FPE examines how power operates at the intersection of gender, ecology, and economic systems, particularly in contexts of environmental change. In the case of Eastern African agriculture, FPE emphasizes that women’s knowledge and practices are shaped not only by environmental conditions but also by social norms, patriarchal institutions, and historical exclusions from decision-making. It thus shifts the focus from seeing women as passive victims of climate change to recognizing them as active agents operating within systems of constraint and opportunity (Elmhirst, 2011).
FPE further encourages researchers to attend to scale and space—not just the micro-level of individual farms, but also the community, policy, and ecological contexts in which women farm. It allows for the interrogation of how state policies, market pressures, and NGO interventions may differentially affect women farmers across different regions and class strata. In this study, FPE informs the ethnographic and interview protocols by prioritizing lived experience, voice, and the spatial dynamics of resource control.
4.2 Grassroots Innovation Theory
While much of the discourse on agricultural innovation is dominated by top-down paradigms, this study draws from grassroots innovation theory to frame how women-led smallholder farms act as localized incubators of adaptive change. According to Seyfang and Smith (2007), grassroots innovation refers to “networks of activists and organizations generating novel bottom–up solutions for sustainable development.” These innovations are usually informal, context-specific, and socially embedded rather than market-driven or technology-centric.
In the rural agricultural context, this means that women’s adaptive strategies—such as seed exchanges, community composting, indigenous pest control, or collective irrigation—may be overlooked in conventional metrics of innovation. Yet, they often hold the key to sustainable change. Grassroots innovation theory redefines success beyond scalability or profit, instead focusing on empowerment, resilience, and environmental stewardship (Smith et al., 2014). This theoretical lens underpins the study’s emphasis on locally-driven solutions and guides the coding of interview data to capture creative practices that may not be formally recognized as “innovation” by policy actors.
4.3 Sustainable Livelihoods Approach
To contextualize innovation within broader livelihood systems, the study also draws on the sustainable livelihoods approach (SLA) developed by Chambers and Conway (1992) and expanded by DFID (1999). SLA views rural households as managing a portfolio of assets—human, social, natural, physical, and financial—that interact in dynamic ways to produce well-being or vulnerability. It emphasizes that resilience is not just about coping with shocks, but about sustaining and improving livelihoods in a way that enhances agency and reduces long-term risk.
In this research, SLA provides the analytical structure for understanding how innovations emerge from necessity and how they relate to broader livelihood strategies. For instance, a woman’s decision to intercrop drought-resistant legumes with maize may not only be a climate adaptation strategy but also a response to nutritional needs, market access, or soil fertility. This lens enables the study to explore the interplay between innovation, risk management, and socio-economic empowerment.
4.4 Intersectionality as Analytical Lens
In addition to the primary frameworks, this study incorporates intersectionality—a conceptual tool developed by Crenshaw (1989)—to examine how overlapping identities shape women farmers’ experiences of resilience and exclusion. While rural women are often grouped as a monolithic category, the research revealed striking differences in adaptive capacity based on marital status, age, disability, education, and ethnicity.
For instance, widowed women in Bugesera and Mbale often lacked both land access and cooperative membership, despite having decades of farming experience. Young, unmarried women were more likely to adopt digital farming tools but also reported being dismissed by male leaders during community decision-making. Disabled women faced compounded barriers: one participant with limited mobility in Kitui described being excluded from both training events and shared labor systems.
Intersectionality thus provides an analytical scaffold to avoid flattening the category of “woman.” It urges scholars and practitioners to consider how climate policies and agricultural innovations must be tailored not only by gender but by multiple, coexisting forms of social difference. This also justifies the use of disaggregated policy targeting, rather than universalized “gender-mainstreamed” programs that risk leaving the most marginalized behind.
5. Methodology
This study employed a convergent mixed-methods design, integrating qualitative and quantitative data to provide a holistic understanding of how women-led smallholder farms contribute to agricultural innovation and climate resilience in Eastern Africa. By combining ethnographic fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, and remote sensing analysis, the methodology was designed to capture both ground-level narratives and broader spatial patterns of land use and environmental change.
5.1 Study Area and Selection Criteria
The research was conducted across selected rural districts in three countries: Rwanda (Bugesera and Nyagatare), Uganda (Mbale and Lira), and Kenya (Kitui and Bungoma). These regions were chosen based on the following criteria:
- High concentration of smallholder women farmers
- Exposure to climate variability and recent climate shocks (e.g., drought, erratic rainfall)
- Active presence of women's farming cooperatives or innovation groups
- Accessibility for field research and institutional partnerships
The study areas represent agro-ecological diversity—from semi-arid zones in Kitui to more humid highlands in Mbale—allowing for comparative analysis of resilience strategies across different environmental contexts.
5.2 Data Collection Methods
5.2.1 Qualitative Methods
Ethnographic Fieldwork
Participant observation was conducted over a three-month period in each country, embedded within local farming communities. Researchers joined in daily farming routines, community meetings, and innovation exchanges, generating field notes and reflexive memos. This immersive approach allowed for the collection of nuanced insights into everyday decision-making, gender norms, and adaptive practices.
Semi-Structured Interviews
A total of 96 in-depth interviews were conducted with women farmers (32 per country), using purposive sampling to ensure diversity in age, marital status, education level, and landholding size. Interviews covered themes such as:
- Farming history and household responsibilities
- Perceptions of climate change
- Innovation practices (formal and informal)
- Access to knowledge, credit, and extension services
- Institutional support and community collaboration
All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and translated into English when necessary. NVivo software was used for coding and thematic analysis.
Key Informant Interviews
Additional interviews were held with local agricultural officers, NGO staff, cooperative leaders, and extension workers (N = 24), to triangulate farmer perspectives and understand the institutional environment.
5.2.2 Quantitative Methods
Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis
To complement the qualitative findings, high-resolution satellite imagery from Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 was analyzed for each study site, focusing on vegetation indices (NDVI), land use change, and soil moisture trends over a 10-year period (2013–2023). Google Earth Engine was used for processing spatial data, while QGIS was employed for visualization and overlay mapping.
Spatial metrics were linked to geo-referenced farms identified during fieldwork, allowing for site-specific analysis of how observed practices—such as agroforestry, terracing, or mulching—correlated with environmental indicators. This integrative approach enabled the quantification of resilience-related outcomes such as vegetation stability, crop health, and land degradation.
5.3 Data Integration and Analysis
The study followed a parallel analysis model, wherein qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed independently and then brought together during interpretation. Thematic codes (e.g., "water conservation," "seed exchange," "institutional exclusion") were mapped against spatial trends (e.g., NDVI anomalies, land cover change) to identify convergence or divergence.
This triangulation process enabled the identification of patterns that were not visible in any single dataset alone. For instance, interviews highlighted a common innovation—intercropping with legumes—that was found to be associated with higher vegetation retention in corresponding NDVI time series.
5.4 Ethical Considerations
Ethical approval was obtained from institutional review boards in all three countries. All participants were informed about the purpose of the study, and written consent was obtained. Anonymity and confidentiality were maintained throughout. In line with feminist methodologies, participants were treated not as subjects but as co-knowledge producers. Validation meetings were held in each community to share initial findings and receive feedback, ensuring accountability and participatory interpretation.
5.5 Limitations
This study acknowledges several limitations. First, the sampling is not representative of all Eastern African women farmers, limiting generalizability. Second, satellite imagery may not capture micro-level agroecological changes such as composting or seed diversity. Third, translation may have affected the nuance of some responses. Despite these limitations, the study provides robust, triangulated insights into women’s innovation and resilience strategies.
6. Findings
6.1 Quantitative Results: Remote Sensing and Environmental Indicators
The spatial analysis conducted through satellite imagery offered critical insight into the environmental performance of women-led smallholder farms across the three study countries. Using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time-series data from 2013 to 2023, the study measured vegetation stability, land degradation trends, and signs of crop stress across mapped farming areas. The results revealed consistent, quantifiable differences between women-led farms that implemented local innovations and nearby control plots with conventional farming practices.
6.1.1 NDVI Trends and Vegetation Health
Across all study sites, farms led by women who practiced climate-adaptive innovations—such as mulching, intercropping, agroforestry, and organic composting—demonstrated higher and more stable NDVI values over time. For example:
- In Bugesera District, Rwanda, NDVI values during the dry seasons of 2019 and 2021 remained above 0.45 on innovation farms compared to an average of 0.30 on control farms, indicating better vegetative cover and soil moisture retention.
- In Kitui, Kenya, areas practicing rainwater harvesting and legume intercropping showed 18% higher NDVI peaks than surrounding plots under monoculture maize.
- In Mbale, Uganda, sustained NDVI improvement was observed in areas with agroforestry and rotational grazing, suggesting improved land use efficiency and resilience to drought.
These NDVI differences were statistically significant (p < 0.01), affirming that grassroots innovations implemented by women farmers have measurable ecological impact.
6.1.2 Land Cover Change and Soil Degradation
Land use classification maps generated from Landsat imagery showed lower rates of vegetation loss and erosion-prone exposure in plots managed by women innovators. In Nyagatare, Rwanda, the proportion of bare land decreased by 14% over the past five years in mapped women-led cooperatives, whereas it increased by 8% in neighboring areas. Soil degradation risk, inferred from spectral reflectance indices and cross-validated with local observations, was consistently lower in plots employing mulching and composting practices.
Moreover, time-lapse analysis in Lira, Uganda, revealed a slow but positive transition from low-productivity shrubland to mixed-use cropland among innovation adopters, indicating both ecological recovery and intensified use of marginal lands.
6.1.3 Spatial Correlation with Adaptation Practices
Overlaying geo-tagged interview data with NDVI and land cover classifications enabled the identification of specific adaptive practices correlated with environmental resilience:
- Agroforestry was associated with improved vegetation stability and slope retention in hilly terrain.
- Organic mulching and composting correlated with soil moisture retention, particularly in semi-arid environments.
- Intercropping and crop rotation were linked with more balanced seasonal NDVI values, reducing sharp fluctuations due to climate stress.
The strength of correlation between NDVI patterns and documented innovation use (Spearman’s ? = 0.67, p < 0.01) indicates a strong link between women’s localized practices and environmental sustainability. These results validate the ecological effectiveness of grassroots adaptation strategies.
6.1.4 Cross-Country Comparison
While overall trends were similar across Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya, context-specific differences emerged:
- Rwanda exhibited the strongest policy alignment with local innovation efforts, with cooperatives receiving modest institutional support for adaptation practices, such as terracing and erosion control.
- Uganda showed the highest spatial variability in NDVI, highlighting the uneven application of climate-smart techniques.
- Kenya, though drier, demonstrated the most creative use of marginal land through indigenous drought-resilient techniques—such as zai pits and sand dams—often initiated by women’s groups.
These cross-country differences underscore the need for locally tailored policy responses that recognize the specific environmental, cultural, and institutional dynamics shaping innovation adoption.
6.2 Qualitative Insights and Farmer Perceptions
The qualitative data gathered through ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews reveal a rich, textured understanding of how women farmers perceive, develop, and apply innovative strategies in response to climate stress. Their narratives emphasize lived experience, communal resilience, and the deeply gendered dimensions of adaptation that are often invisible in policy discourse and agricultural extension models.
6.2.1 Climate Perception and Risk Awareness
Almost all interviewees across the three countries articulated a clear understanding of changing climatic conditions, even in the absence of formal meteorological training. Terms like “seasons are broken,” “rain betrays us,” and “the sun is angrier now” were common across rural Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda. Women farmers described longer dry spells, shortened rainy seasons, declining soil fertility, and the unpredictability of planting cycles.
Many women reported using indigenous indicators to forecast weather patterns—such as observing bird migration, ant behavior, or moon phases. These insights suggest a sophisticated localized knowledge system attuned to ecological cues. One farmer in Kitui, Kenya, noted:
“When the termite hills crack early, we know the rains will delay. That is how I prepare my ground.”
Such knowledge has become crucial in the absence of reliable climate information services reaching rural women.
6.2.2 Innovation through Necessity and Experimentation
Contrary to dominant narratives that depict rural women as passive recipients of aid, many participants framed innovation as an act of necessity and survival. Several women described how crop failure or water scarcity led them to experiment with unconventional techniques, often derived from observation, peer learning, or inherited practices.
In Bugesera, Rwanda, one participant described her transition from monoculture to intercropping after consecutive losses of maize:
“I began planting beans with sweet potatoes. The beans give shade and fix the soil. I noticed fewer weeds and better moisture.”
In Mbale, Uganda, composting with kitchen ash and poultry droppings emerged as a widely adopted practice, learned informally through neighbor demonstration rather than formal training.
Cooperative networks played a significant role in spreading innovation. Women shared that communal seed banks, labor-sharing groups, and innovation circles helped reduce individual risk and accelerate knowledge diffusion. The iterative nature of these practices—characterized by trial, failure, refinement, and adaptation—mirrors the dynamics of formal research and development, albeit with different social logics.
6.2.3 Barriers to Innovation and Institutional Disconnection
Despite their ingenuity, women farmers face persistent structural barriers that limit the scale and impact of their innovations. Key challenges included:
- Land tenure insecurity: Many women farm on land they do not legally own, inhibiting long-term investments in soil health or irrigation infrastructure.
- Limited access to finance: Microcredit remains unevenly distributed, with many women relying on informal savings groups or selling assets to finance farm inputs.
- Exclusion from extension services: Several respondents noted that agricultural training programs often target men or more “commercial” farmers, leaving small-scale female farmers underserved.
One farmer in Lira, Uganda, stated:
“The government trainings are for big farmers. They talk about machines. We only have hoes and our hands.”
Another in Nyagatare, Rwanda, shared:
“Even when we are invited, the language is difficult, the experts speak fast, and they leave quickly.”
These testimonials highlight a profound disconnect between formal agricultural institutions and the lived realities of rural women innovators. Many felt unseen by policy actors, unrepresented in decision-making, and unsupported in scaling up successful practices.
6.2.4 Social Value and Identity
Beyond material concerns, innovation carried social and emotional significance. Several women expressed pride in being seen as “problem-solvers” or “knowledge holders” in their communities. Innovation also reinforced identity and leadership. In Bungoma, Kenya, a grandmother-turned-farming mentor shared:
“Young girls come to me to ask about farming. They say I know things. That gives me strength.”
Such narratives demonstrate that agricultural innovation is not merely a technical process but a deeply social and affective one. It shapes how women view themselves, how they are viewed by others, and how community cohesion is maintained amid uncertainty.
7. Policy Recommendations
The findings of this research compel a radical shift in the way policy frameworks engage with women smallholders and their climate-resilient innovations. Too often, development and climate strategies invoke women rhetorically but fail to structurally empower them as leaders, decision-makers, and innovators. Below are six interlocking policy recommendations grounded in field realities, remote sensing data, and feminist ecological theory.
7.1 Recognize and Institutionalize Women’s Indigenous Knowledge
Women’s agricultural innovations in Eastern Africa are rooted in indigenous knowledge systems, often passed down through matrilineal oral traditions or experiential learning within cooperatives. Yet, these systems are rarely documented, let alone funded.
Governments, universities, and international agencies should establish formal National Indigenous Knowledge Registries where successful women-led practices—such as intercropping with nitrogen-fixing species, banana-bean layering in Rwanda, or zai pit innovations in Kenya—can be peer-reviewed, published, and scaled.
Moreover, participatory action research (PAR) methodologies must be adopted so women farmers co-lead experimentation and curriculum development. Existing programs like Rwanda’s Twigire Muhinzi extension model could be adapted to create “Twigire Women Innovators” clusters, ensuring women’s techniques are not appropriated or diluted by external actors.
Furthermore, the African Union’s Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2024) should explicitly include gendered innovation metrics in its next revision, helping regional policymakers mainstream the epistemic authority of grassroots women.
7.2 Strengthen Gender-Responsive Agricultural Extension Services
Extension services are a vital link between innovation and implementation. However, across Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda, women repeatedly reported feeling “uninvited,” “excluded,” or “talked down to” during extension visits. This is not a communication failure—it is a structural exclusion.
Governments should invest in training a new cadre of female extension agents, especially from local communities. These agents can bridge linguistic, cultural, and trust gaps and serve as long-term mentors.
Extension service redesign should also include:
- Climate-smart pictorial manuals with minimal text, usable by semi-literate or low-literacy populations;
- Farm radio programming led by women in local dialects, building on successful models like Uganda’s Radio Simba;
- “Mother demo plots” run by women that serve as peer learning sites, hosted on their land and owned by cooperatives, not NGOs.
In addition, performance-based incentives should reward extension agents not for number of visits, but for the uptake of practices by marginalized groups, particularly widows, single mothers, and women-headed households.
7.3 Improve Land Tenure Security for Women
Land insecurity is perhaps the most critical—and under-addressed—obstacle facing women innovators. In Rwanda, while legal reforms have expanded access, customary practices still prevail in many rural communities. In Uganda and Kenya, women’s ownership is often mediated through male kin, leaving them vulnerable to disinheritance.
To address this:
- Mass legal literacy campaigns should be launched using community theater, radio, and religious platforms to demystify women’s land rights;
- Governments should digitize land records with a gendered tagging system, ensuring joint registration is the default for married couples;
- Pilot programs should link “innovation incentives” with tenure upgrades, e.g., awarding long-term usufruct rights to women whose farms demonstrate sustainable land use, verified by satellite NDVI analysis.
Donor-funded land reform efforts (such as USAID’s LAND Project in Ethiopia and Rwanda) must include gender audits to ensure reforms are not merely procedural but substantively empower women.
7.4 Expand Access to Gender-Inclusive Climate Finance
Despite contributing more labor and innovation, women in agriculture access less than 10% of formal rural credit in the region. This is a structural injustice that limits scale and resilience.
National agricultural development banks, such as Uganda’s ADB or Kenya’s AFC, should:
- Design women-first climate resilience funds offering patient capital with grace periods, flexible repayment, and built-in adaptation support;
- Promote climate-linked microinsurance bundles that offer coverage for rainfall failure and input vouchers;
- Establish gendered guarantee schemes, where government or development partners absorb part of the risk, encouraging commercial banks to lend to women’s groups.
In Rwanda, for instance, cooperatives such as Abahinzi Ba Kawa (women coffee growers) have successfully repaid over 90% of small loans when structured collectively. Such cooperative lending can be expanded with state-backed incentives and mobile-based repayment tracking.
Finally, financial literacy and negotiation skills training should be embedded in farmer group curricula, preparing women not just to receive funds but to manage and multiply them.
7.5 Foster Participatory Policy Development and Representation
Policy inclusion remains largely aspirational across the region. Women’s voices are seldom present in formal agricultural councils or climate planning bodies. Even when present, their participation is often symbolic.
To change this:
- Constitutions and agriculture acts should mandate minimum 40% representation of women in all agricultural boards, water user associations, and climate task forces;
- Ministries should establish “Climate Justice Fellowship” programs to train rural women leaders in policy engagement, budgeting, and advocacy;
- Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) processes must include feedback loops so that community input visibly shapes final plans.
Importantly, accountability structures must be built. Annual gender audits, published in open-access formats and debated in parliamentary agriculture committees, should measure representation, budget allocations, and impacts on women’s livelihoods.
Women must move from being consulted to co-governing.
7.6 Promote Regional Learning and Knowledge Exchange
Given the shared agro-ecological and climatic conditions in the East African Community (EAC), there is immense potential to scale women-led innovation across borders. However, regional agricultural strategies remain top-down and donor-driven.
We recommend:
- Establishing East African Women Farmers' Innovation Forums as annual gatherings supported by the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), facilitating peer exchange and showcasing grassroots technologies;
- Creating a “Digital Commons for Women in Agriculture”—an open-source platform where video tutorials, planting guides, and localized innovations are uploaded by women, for women;
- Launching regional mentorship programs connecting rural innovators with agronomists, market experts, and climate scientists for mutual learning.
EAC agriculture secretariats should also embed a Gender Innovation Index within their performance scorecards, ensuring that innovations emerging from marginalized communities receive the same attention as high-tech exports.
8. Conclusion
This study set out to explore the multifaceted role of women-led smallholder farms in shaping agricultural innovation and climate resilience across Eastern Africa. Through the triangulation of field-based ethnographic data, remote sensing analysis, and interviews with both farmers and institutional actors, the research uncovered a robust body of evidence affirming that women are not passive recipients of external assistance. Rather, they are strategic agents of transformation operating at the very heart of food production and environmental stewardship.
The findings demonstrate that women’s grassroots innovations are not ad hoc coping strategies, but forms of knowledge-driven adaptation rooted in cultural experience, ecological intuition, and social cooperation. From organic mulching and seed preservation to intercropping and community composting, women’s practices have measurable ecological benefits. These were confirmed through NDVI analysis and land cover data, showing reduced soil degradation, improved vegetation stability, and greater resilience to seasonal climate variability.
Yet these contributions occur within a context of systemic marginalization. Women continue to face institutional barriers to land ownership, agricultural finance, and meaningful participation in policymaking processes. Despite their innovation, they are often excluded from extension services, overlooked by researchers, and underserved by markets. This contradiction—of being both central and peripheral—highlights the gendered dynamics of vulnerability and resilience in agrarian settings.
Addressing these disparities requires more than technical interventions; it demands a reconfiguration of institutional power and knowledge systems. Feminist political ecology, grassroots innovation theory, and the sustainable livelihoods framework collectively underscore that transformation must be inclusive, grounded, and participatory. The path to climate-resilient agriculture must be charted with—not merely for—rural women.
Crucially, this study emphasizes the importance of policy co-creation, where women farmers are embedded in the design, monitoring, and evaluation of programs intended to serve them. Innovations must be resourced, validated, and scaled in ways that preserve their cultural integrity and respond to local conditions. Future interventions should resist homogenizing “women” as a category, instead applying intersectional approaches that consider age, marital status, disability, ethnicity, and geography.
Moreover, the implications of this study extend beyond national contexts. As climate change continues to destabilize food systems globally, the Eastern African experience offers critical lessons for the Global South and beyond. Regional and South–South cooperation around gendered innovation holds untapped potential for scaling adaptation strategies that are both effective and equitable.
In sum, women on the frontlines of agriculture are not merely adapting to climate change—they are redefining resilience. Their innovations, often born of necessity and refined through experience, embody a vision of sustainability that is regenerative, inclusive, and deeply rooted in place. To ignore these contributions is to undermine not only gender equity but the very future of food security in a changing world.
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