Extension support for women-owned agricultural enterprises: Barriers, enablers, and success factors

Introduction

Across Latin America, women's participation in agricultural enterprise ownership has grown steadily over the past two decades, yet extension services haven't kept pace with this shift [1] . In Ecuador, the gap is especially visible: women manage an estimated 30% of rural agricultural enterprises in highland provinces, but government extension programs reach fewer than 12% of female-headed farms compared to 34% of male-headed operations [2,3] . This isn't just an equity problem it's an economic one, since under-supported enterprises produce less, generate lower incomes, and fail at higher rates. The barriers women face in accessing extension are well documented in general terms: time constraints from unpaid care work, limited land titles that restrict collateral-based credit, social norms that exclude women from farmer groups, and extension content designed around male farming patterns [4,5] . But less is known about which specific barriers matter most for different types of womenowned enterprises, and what factors actually enable women to succeed despite these obstacles. Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa suggests that women's agricultural groups, microfinance linkages, and adapted extension content can significantly improve outcomes for female farmers [6,7] . Whether these findings transfer to Latin American contexts with different gender norms, land tenure systems, and institutional structures remains an open question [8] . This research addressed that gap by systematically mapping barriers, enablers, and success factors for women-owned agricultural enterprises in Ecuador's Azuay province, with the goal of informing gender-responsive extension redesign [9,10] .

Theoretical framework

The research applied the Gender and Agriculture Framework developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute [11] , which identifies four domains of women's empowerment in agriculture: resources (land, credit, inputs), agency (decision-making power, group membership), achievements (income, food security, enterprise growth), and institutional structures (policies, norms, extension design). This framework guided variable selection and analysis by treating barriers as resource and institutional constraints, enablers as agency factors, and success as achievement indicators. The framework predicts that extension interventions targeting multiple domains simultaneously will produce stronger outcomes than singledomain approaches [12] .

Material and Methods

Material

This research employed a sequential explanatory mixedmethods design, conducted from the School of Agriculture, University of Cuenca, Ecuador, between May 2022 and October 2023. Ethical approval was granted by the University of Cuenca Research Ethics Committee (Protocol UC-CIE-2022-048, approved April 11, 2022). The quantitative phase surveyed 268 women-owned agricultural enterprises across three cantons of Azuay province: Cuenca, Gualaceo, and Sigsig. Enterprises were identified through municipal agricultural registries and women's cooperative membership lists, selected via proportional stratified sampling by enterprise type (crop production, livestock, agro-processing, market vending, mixed farming). The qualitative phase involved 36 in-depth interviews with a purposive subsample representing high-performing and struggling enterprises [13] .

Methods

The structured survey captured enterprise characteristics, extension service history, barriers experienced (rated on severity scales), enabling factors, and enterprise performance indicators including annual revenue, growth trajectory, and employment generation. Barrier severity was measured as the percentage of respondents rating each barrier as "severe" or "very severe" on a five-point scale. Success factors were assessed through self-reported contribution scores. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, binary logistic regression for enterprise growth predictors, and Kruskal-Wallis tests for cross-enterprise comparisons in SPSS version 28. Qualitative interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis with NVivo 12 [14,15] .

Instrument development and validation

The survey instrument was developed through literature synthesis and participatory consultation with 12 women agricultural leaders from non-sample communities. Content validity was assessed by four experts in gender and agriculture, yielding a content validity index of 0.87. The instrument was pilot-tested with 25 women entrepreneurs in Paute canton in March 2022. Reliability analysis produced Cronbach's alpha values of 0.86 for the barrier scale and 0.81 for the success factor scale. The final instrument was administered in Spanish with local terminology adaptations. Barrier profiles varied significantly by enterprise type (Table 1). Crop producers faced the most severe credit and land barriers, while market vending enterprises reported market linkage as their top challenge. Time constraints were highest among mixed farming and crop production enterprises. The model (χ2 = 71.43, df = 6, p<0.001) classified 76.1% of cases correctly (Table 2). Group membership was the strongest predictor (OR = 3.28), followed by extension contact frequency and microfinance access. Time constraints had a significant negative effect The heatmap (Figure 1) shows that credit access and land ownership barriers concentrated most heavily among crop production and mixed farming enterprises, while market linkage challenges peaked for agro-processing and vending operations.

Results

Discussion

The findings reveal that barriers to women-owned agricultural enterprises in Ecuador are not uniform they vary substantially by enterprise type, which has direct implications for extension design. The dominance of group membership as a success predictor (OR = 3.28) echoes African evidence on women's farmer groups [6] but adds nuance: qualitative interviews showed that groups in Azuay function not just as information channels but as collective bargaining units for credit and market access, amplifying individual women's agency [7,11] . Extension contact was the second-strongest growth predictor (OR = 2.80), but the threshold effect matters quarterly visits were the minimum for measurable impact. This suggests that sporadic extension contact, which is what most women currently receive, doesn't generate enough trust or continuity to overcome structural barriers. The negative effect of time constraints confirms that extension scheduling must adapt to women's care responsibilities, a finding consistent across Latin American and African contexts [4,5,16] .

Limitations

The cross-sectional design limits causal inference. Selfreported barrier severity and success factors may reflect perception rather than objective conditions. The sample was limited to three cantons and may not represent coastal or Amazonian agricultural systems in Ecuador. Selection through formal registries likely missed the most marginalized informal enterprises.

Conclusion

Extension support for women-owned agricultural enterprises in Ecuador requires a gender-responsive approach that addresses enterprise-specific barriers while building on community-based enablers. Group membership, regular extension contact, and microfinance access were the strongest success factors. Practical recommendations include restructuring extension schedules around women's time availability, linking extension with women's savings groups, and developing enterprise-type-specific advisory content that addresses the particular barriers each category faces.

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