📄 agriculture

When agency is not enough: women’s agricultural decision-making and household food insecurity in rural North Cotabato, Philippine

This mixed-methods study in rural North Cotabato, Philippines, reveals that while women's agricultural decision-making agency is associated with reduced household food insecurity, its effectiveness is fundamentally limited by structural constraints such as unequal resource access, heavy domestic labor burdens, and entrenched gender power dynamics.

Original authors: Bolonghoge Uthpala Hansi Dayanath, Frannie Shane Villanueva Pineda

Published 2026-07-07

📖 5 min read🧠 Deep dive

CC BY 4.0

Original authors: Bolonghoge Uthpala Hansi Dayanath, Frannie Shane Villanueva Pineda

Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ✨ This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer

The Big Picture: The "Captain's Wheel" vs. The "Storm"

Imagine a household is a small boat trying to navigate through a stormy sea. The goal is food security—making sure everyone on the boat has enough to eat.

For a long time, experts thought that if you just gave the women on the boat the steering wheel (decision-making power), the boat would automatically stay on course and avoid running out of food.

This study, conducted in rural North Cotabato in the Philippines, asks a different question: What happens when the woman has the steering wheel, but the boat is broken, the engine is missing, and she is too busy bailing water to steer?

The researchers found that while having the steering wheel (decision-making power) does help, it is not enough on its own. If the woman doesn't have the fuel (resources), the time to steer, or the crew's support, she can't save the boat from sinking, even if she is holding the wheel.

The Main Characters and the Setup

The Location: A farming area in the Philippines where life is hard. The weather is unpredictable, there have been past conflicts, and money is tight.
The People: The researchers talked to 245 people (men and women) who farm.
The Question: Does the woman's ability to make choices about crops, money, and food actually stop the family from going hungry?

What They Found: The "Steering Wheel" Works, But Only Sometimes

1. The Good News: The Wheel Helps
The data showed a clear link: When women had more say in decisions (like what crops to plant or how to spend the money from selling vegetables), the family was less likely to be hungry.

Analogy: Think of it like a team captain. When the captain is allowed to call the plays, the team usually scores more points. Women who could make decisions helped their families manage food better.

2. The Bad News: The Wheel is Useless Without Fuel
However, the study found that many women were holding the wheel but couldn't actually drive the boat. Why?

No Gas (Resources): Men were much more likely to get training on how to farm, own land, or get the right seeds and tools. Women often had to ask permission or rely on men for these things.
The "Double Shift" (Time): Women were doing the farming plus all the housework (cooking, cleaning, childcare). They were so tired and busy that even if they had the power to decide, they didn't have the time to act on those decisions.
The "Silent Crew" (Social Norms): Even when women made good decisions, sometimes the men or the community didn't respect them as "real farmers." It was like a co-pilot who is told to fly the plane but isn't allowed to touch the controls because the captain thinks they don't know how.

The "Broken Ladder" Metaphor

Imagine Food Security is a ladder you need to climb to get to safety.

Women's Decision-Making is the first rung of the ladder.
Resources (Land, Training, Money) are the second and third rungs.
Time and Support are the fourth and fifth rungs.

The study found that many women were standing on the first rung (they had the power to decide), but the rest of the ladder was missing. You can't climb to safety if the ladder stops halfway up.

The "Surprising" Twist: Support Isn't Always Good

The researchers noticed something interesting about "male support."

Sometimes, when men said they "supported" women, it actually meant they were watching over them or giving permission. This didn't help the women feel powerful.
However, when men gave "occasional" support (like helping out when asked), the women felt more empowered.
Analogy: It's the difference between a parent holding a child's hand so tightly they can't walk (controlling support) versus a parent standing nearby and saying, "You can do it, I'm here if you need me" (enabling support).

The Conclusion: It's Not Just About "Empowerment"

The paper concludes that you cannot just tell women, "You are empowered, go fix the food problem!" and expect it to work.

The Verdict:
Women's ability to make decisions is a key ingredient, but it's not the whole recipe.

If you give a woman the power to decide but no land to farm, no training to learn, and no time because she's raising three kids, she cannot solve the hunger problem.
To fix hunger, you need to give women the steering wheel (power), the fuel (land/training), and the crew's help (sharing housework) all at the same time.

Summary in One Sentence

Women holding the reins helps the family eat better, but if they don't have the horse, the map, or the time to ride, the family will still go hungry.

Technical Summary: When Agency is Not Enough: Women's Agricultural Decision-Making and Household Food Insecurity in Rural North Cotabato, Philippines

Problem Statement
While women's empowerment in agriculture is frequently posited as a direct pathway to household food security, this relationship is not automatic. In contexts characterized by unequal resource access, heavy domestic labor burdens, and rigid household power relations, decision-making agency may exist but remain insufficient to protect households from food insecurity. This study addresses the gap in understanding how women's agricultural decision-making agency interacts with structural constraints in rural North Cotabato, Philippines. The region faces overlapping challenges of agrarian vulnerability, conflict history, and climate stress. The central inquiry is whether decision-making agency alone can improve food security outcomes or if its efficacy is conditional upon access to resources, time, and social recognition.

Methodology
The study employed a cross-sectional mixed-methods design involving 245 agriculturally involved respondents (115 women, 130 men) across nine sites in North Cotabato.

Quantitative Measures:
- Decision-Making Empowerment: Adapted from the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), five indicators measured authority over crop/livestock selection, inputs, produce use, income, and household nutrition. Scores ranged from 0 to 10 (higher = greater agency).
- Household Food Insecurity: Assessed using an adapted five-item Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) over a four-week recall period. Scores ranged from 0 to 15 (higher = greater insecurity).
- Analysis: Descriptive statistics, Spearman's correlation, one-way ANOVA, chi-square tests, and linear/multiple regression analyses were conducted using R Studio.
Qualitative Measures:
- Open-ended survey responses were analyzed using Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis to explore barriers, contributions, and proposed solutions regarding women's agricultural roles.
Ethical Considerations: The study received approval from the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (Project ID 48793). Participation was voluntary and anonymous.

Key Results

Association between Agency and Food Security: A significant negative correlation was found between women's decision-making empowerment and household food insecurity ( $r_s = -0.255, p = 0.006$ ). Linear regression indicated that empowerment scores significantly predicted lower food insecurity ( $B = -0.31, p = 0.003$ ).
Group Disparities: Severe food insecurity was concentrated in low-empowerment groups. Specifically, 57.9% of female respondents with low empowerment and 66.7% of male respondents with low empowerment were severely food insecure. In contrast, the male high-empowerment group had the lowest mean food insecurity score (5.48).
Resource Gaps: Significant gender disparities existed in access to critical resources. Only 17.4% of women reported access to agricultural training compared to 46.9% of men. Significant gaps were also observed in land access ( $\chi^2 = 7.88, p = 0.005$ ) and inputs ( $\chi^2 = 11.48, p = 0.0007$ ).
Barriers: Qualitative analysis identified domestic responsibilities as the primary barrier (cited by 76.5% of women and 79.2% of men), followed by lack of training, male dominance, and cultural traditions.
The Role of Support: Interestingly, respondents reporting "occasional" male support had higher empowerment scores than those reporting "consistent" support, suggesting that the quality of support (e.g., shared decision-making vs. supervision) matters more than mere presence.

Key Contributions

Conditional Pathway: The study establishes that women's agricultural decision-making agency is associated with improved food security, but only under enabling conditions. Agency alone is insufficient without the material resources (land, inputs, training) and temporal freedom (relief from unpaid domestic labor) to act on decisions.
Structural Constraints on Agency: The research highlights that "participation" does not equate to "empowerment." Women in North Cotabato are heavily involved in marketing, budgeting, and post-harvest activities, yet their decision-making authority is constrained by a lack of land tenure, exclusion from technical training, and the "time poverty" caused by unpaid domestic care work.
Relational Nature of Empowerment: Findings suggest that agency is not merely an individual attribute but is shaped by household relations. The study challenges the notion that simply encouraging male support is sufficient; rather, the nature of that support must shift from paternalistic control to shared authority to be effective.
Contextual Specificity: The study demonstrates that global frameworks like WEAI must be interpreted within local realities. In North Cotabato, women's recognized contributions center on sales and budgeting, while constraints are rooted in specific institutional and cultural barriers rather than a lack of motivation or ability.

Significance and Claims
The paper claims that women's empowerment should be understood as a "conditional pathway" rather than an inherently effective mechanism for food security. The findings argue against policies that shift the responsibility for household food security onto women's decision-making without simultaneously addressing the structural conditions that limit their choices.

The study posits that for decision-making agency to translate into meaningful food security outcomes, interventions must move beyond encouraging participation. They must provide:

Secure access to land and production inputs.
Gender-responsive training and extension services.
Mechanisms to address the unequal burden of unpaid domestic labor.
Institutional recognition of women as legitimate agricultural decision-makers.

The authors conclude that while decision-making agency supports food security, it cannot offset structural disadvantage on its own. The relationship between agency and food security is shaped by the resources, time, and social legitimacy available to women to exercise that agency.