Human resource strategy for Kenyan women smallholders

Smallholder is a relative term, used to mean a small‐scale farmer and also peasant rural‐based holders. They constitute over 85 per cent of the rural population, mainly tilling the land and contributing 90 per cent of the nation’s agricultural produce. There is an imbalance against the Kenyan smallholder women’s participation in development although they are the pillars of rural and national development. It is known generally that the African women are by default excluded from the center stage of the developmental decision‐making process. One crucial factor is the apparent low numbers of women as head of households besides being in key management and decision‐making positions. Essentially this work is built on the understanding that opening educational opportunities, erasing backward‐looking discriminatory practices and putting capacity‐building initiatives in place will increase women’s participation in the decision‐making process. The key questions see African women generally as educationally disadvantaged, affected by discriminatory practices and needing professional and management capacity‐building in the smallholder sector.