International Journal of Social Science Research
ISSN 2327-5510 2015, Vol. 3, No. 2
The Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Collaborative Research Support Program in East
Africa has been using a farmer participatory IPM strategy with small-scale tomato growers at
on-farm research sites in Kenya and Tanzania since 2004. Understanding local farmer
knowledge of agricultural production, including both gendered and contextual factors, is a
hallmark of participatory approaches, and important to the design and development of
appropriate location-specific IPM technologies. The purpose of this study was to compare
and contrast gender and contextual influences on tomato production farm-level
decision-making and marketing practices. The results indicate that regardless of context,
gender influenced access to resources and this influenced production quantity and
decision-making. However, contextual differences predominated suggesting that “one-size
does not fit all” and that planned interventions need to be tailored to specific contexts in
which gender relations unfold. Contextual similarities in the production of higher value
marketed horticultural crops, including female cash crop production and the prevalent use of
synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, provides evidence that the gender-specific nature of
traditional African farming is transitioning. That extension agents were relatively minor
sources of information suggests that horticultural cash crop production is an important
contextual basis for differentiating the demand for IPM programs.