Socio-Cultural Factors and Women Participation in Community Agribusiness Projects: A Case of Kieni Constituency, Nyeri County, Kenya

In many parts of the world, women were traditionally assigned housekeeping responsibilities while men took bread-wining roles. These culturally biased roles have been limiting women's exposure and involvement in financially productive ventures such as agribusiness while limiting their ability to make decisions or take part effectively in agricultural projects. The main objective of the study was to assess the impact of socio-cultural factors on women's participation in community agribusiness projects in Kieni constituency, Kenya. The specific objectives were to assess how gender roles influence women's participation in agribusiness projects in Kieni Constituency. The study was grounded under the feminization theory while adopting a descriptive survey method. The target population for this study consisted of 24 farmer groups with a total of 600 women, and 16 extension officers working in the constituency. This study used simple random sampling procedure to select the farmer groups. Research questionnaires were used to collect data and SPSS software version 21 was used to evaluate data. The study analysed questionnaires from 487 participants who belonged to 24 women groups in Kieni Constituency. 350 of participants agreed that gender roles play a significant role of determining women participation in agribusiness activities. The study showed that gender roles (r=0.864, p = 0.000<0.05), had significant relationship with women participation in agribusiness. Gender disparities in access to resources, support mechanisms, and lack of access to information have disadvantaged many women in the area. Interview distributed to 16 farming extension officers showed that gender inequality and lack of sustainable women empowerment programs contributes to reduced participation of women in agribusiness. The research recommends an expansion of women empowerment programs in rural areas to improve knowledge, access to essential resources such as land, and access credit to increase participation in agribusiness and other social empowerment programs.