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Paper short abstract

Tractor scarcity and labour loss hinder Ghanaian farmers, with women facing added barriers. Research in Volta and Bono shows exclusion stems from intersecting factors beyond gender. Digital platforms aid coordination but aren’t a panacea; women use collective and informal strategies.

Paper long abstract

In Ghana, limited availability of tractors and a shrinking rural labour force pose significant challenges for farmers attempting to improve rural livelihoods and boost productivity. Mechanisation is an obstacle for all smallholders, but women face particularly pronounced barriers. Digital matching platforms – mobile applications that link tractor owners with farmers – hold promise, as their algorithms circumvent biases often found in informal networks. We investigate the barriers faced by women and explore the role of digital platforms in facilitating more equitable access. Five-month mixed-methods research in Ghana’s Volta and Bono regions challenges the assumption about gender as the sole determinant of women’s exclusion. Using intersectionality framework, we demonstrate how overlapping identities – gender, socioeconomic status, age, marital status, plot size/location – combine into multidimensional exclusion that cannot be addressed through a single, linear, digital matching intervention. We document entrepreneurial strategies – collective bargaining, appealing to communal ethics, roadside sit-ins, and pragmatic deception – employed by women to access tractors. We argue that digital technologies, such as digital communicators, have an enabling effect by improving communication and coordination. Our findings highlight the complexity of socioeconomic network dependencies that govern rural communities, problematising the widespread application of digital apps as a panacea for women farmers’ problems and underscoring the need for context-aware interventions.