Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture

The document examines the intersection of voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and gender equality in agriculture. It analyzes five major standards—Fairtrade International, IFOAM Organic, Rainforest Alliance, UTZ Certified, and the 4Cs—across six thematic areas: household food security, rights to productive resources, education, unpaid domestic labour, decision-making/empowerment, and decent work. The guide finds that while VSSs can improve wages and working conditions, they risk exacerbating inequalities if they prioritize cash crops over women's subsistence farming or increase women's unpaid labour burdens without providing childcare or gender-transformative training.

• VSSs can indirectly improve household food security through sustainable production requirements that introduce nutrient-dense crops, such as bananas in coffee shade systems or legumes in organic coffee farming in Uganda.
• Certification may undermine household food security if the promotion of cash crops, typically managed by men, leads to the prioritization of land for those crops over the subsistence food production managed by women.
• VSSs do not directly promote women's land rights, but they may indirectly facilitate temporary land access in regions with high male out-migration, as certification audits often require the landowner to be present.
• Certification can reinforce gender gaps in agricultural training and information access unless specific outreach for women is implemented, as extension services typically target land-owning men.
• VSSs promote children's school attendance by prohibiting child labour, and evidence suggests they promote the education of girls and boys equally without altering parental preferences.
• The prohibition of child labour in VSSs can inadvertently hinder women's ability to work if it prevents them from bringing children to the field in cultures where this is the only available childcare option.
• Certification can enhance women's intra-household decision-making power, particularly when accompanied by gender equality training and increased involvement in the production process.
• In contexts of deeply entrenched patriarchy, VSSs may have no impact on women's empowerment or may even reinforce male dominance if men retain exclusive control over the income streams from certified products.
• VSSs improve working conditions for women waged labourers by requiring compliance with standards that often exceed national laws, including provisions for maternity leave and the prohibition of sexual harassment.
• Certification often increases the unpaid labour burden for women on smallholder farms, as they frequently perform the additional quality-control and environmental tasks required for certification without compensation.
• VSSs can contribute to women's adaptive capacity to climate change by improving income and credit access, though specific research on women's adaptive capacity remains limited.

APA

Sexsmith, K. (2019). Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/vss-gender-equality-agriculture-en.pdf

Chicago

Sexsmith, Kathleen. Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2019. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/vss-gender-equality-agriculture-en.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Sexsmith |first1=Kathleen |title=Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=March 2019 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/vss-gender-equality-agriculture-en.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{sexsmith2019leveraging, author = {Sexsmith, Kathleen}, title = {{Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2019}, month = mar, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/vss-gender-equality-agriculture-en.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }