Quantitative gender analysis country report, Rwanda: Building Equitable Climate Resilient African Bean and Insect Sectors (BRAINS) Project

Agriculture is crucial to livelihoods, food and nutrition security, and rural economic resilience in Rwanda, where most households are smallholder farmers, relying mainly on rain-fed farming systems. However, the sector is increasingly exposed to climatic variability, including irregular rainfall, temperature changes, and heightened pest and disease pressures that threaten output and household incomes. These climate-related risks intersect with existing gender and structural disparities, particularly in access to land, extension services, inputs, agro-weather information, and market opportunities. Women and youth, despite their important contributions to agricultural labour and food systems, continue to face obstacles that limit their involvement in high-value farming enterprises and their ability to benefit equitably from climate-smart innovations. Understanding these gender-differentiated processes across key value chains is therefore essential for building inclusive and climate-resilient agricultural solutions.
This quantitative baseline study evaluated gendered participation, resource availability, market engagement, and use of weather information across the common bean, fruit tree, and insect value chains for food and feed in Rwanda’s four provinces. The findings demonstrate distinct gender differences in land ownership, enterprise scale, input use, market access, and intra-household decision-making. While women are highly engaged in production and community-based financial groups, men often control larger landholdings, produce larger volumes, and have access to more commercialised market channels. In the bean value chain, men produce and sell much larger volumes, earn higher prices, and perceive greater benefits from market arrangements, whereas women emphasise home consumption and rely more on informal seed and marketing channels. In fruit tree firms, men dominate tree ownership, input use, and access to distant or export-oriented markets, whereas women are more concentrated in small-scale production and localised sales. Participation in insect-based enterprises is limited overall, but men are more involved in beekeeping and have greater access to extension services, while women have lower exposure to new insect-based and climate-related innovations.
Across the three value chains, farmers face constraints in access to quality inputs, pest and disease management solutions, irrigation, mechanisation, and financial services, with women facing more pronounced barriers related to land size, digital access, and extension participation. Although knowledge and use of agro-weather information services are generally high, training is limited, and women receive information less frequently and through fewer channels. These patterns indicate the intersection of climate risks with gendered power relations, which hinder women’s abilities to adopt climate-smart practices and participate equitably in agricultural markets. The findings highlight the potential for gender-responsive interventions, including increased access to quality inputs and planting materials, climate-smart training, strengthened market linkages, post-harvest infrastructure, and targeted financial and entrepreneurship support for women and youth. Expanding gender-inclusive extension services, enhancing access to agro-weather information, and fostering joint household decision-making will be crucial for strengthening equitable climate resilience under the BRAINS programme in Rwanda.