A Gendered Perspective of Pro-poor Innovation Adoption among Subsistence Farmers in Kenya

Pro-poor agricultural innovations, including improved seeds, new crops, fertilisers and enhanced access to resources and markets, are widely promoted as solutions to food security challenges faced by subsistence farmers. Despite their potential, however, adoption rates remain low. While limited physical and economic access to innovations has been widely recognised as a barrier, the influence of gender relations is significant but remains under-researched. This gap is particularly significant given the central role women play in agricultural production, especially in developing countries. Understanding how gender relations shape the perception, adoption, and diffusion of pro-poor agricultural innovations requires greater attention to the experiences and perspectives of subsistence farmers themselves. This research, therefore, aims to explore how gender relations influence the adoption and diffusion of pro-poor agricultural innovations among subsistence farmers in Kenya. Using an ethnographic approach, this research explores the lived experiences of subsistence farmers in two under-researched sub-Counties in Kenya: Mbeere North and Tigania East. Through prolonged immersion, participant observation, and sustained engagement with farming communities, the research explores how farmers adopt product, process, or institutional innovations. Ethnography was chosen for its strength in generating in-depth, context-sensitive insights into the social realities of subsistence farming and to reveal dimensions of innovation adoption that are often overlooked by quantitative approaches. The ethnographic approach also offers unique advantages for understanding adopters of pro-poor agricultural innovations in subsistence contexts, where livelihoods are precarious, resources are scarce, and adoption decisions are closely tied to survival strategies, social structures, and cultural norms. In particular, the approach illuminates how gender roles, identities, and interactions shape everyday agricultural practices, while also making visible hidden power structures concerning resource control, decision-making authority, and labour contributions. The findings of this research reveal that women and men evaluate pro-poor agricultural innovations in relation to their socially constructed roles and responsibilities within the household. As such, the perceptions of innovation value differ by gender. Understanding these differences is important because gender extends beyond biological distinctions and reflects socially constructed identities, expectations, and relationships that shape how innovations are perceived and utilised. The research further demonstrates that subsistence farmers are not a homogeneous group. Four distinct adopter profiles emerged from the data: necessity-driven adopters, left-behind adopters, experienced adopters, and knowledgeable adopters. These profiles highlight the diverse motivations, constraints, capabilities, and meanings associated with the adoption of innovation in contexts characterised by resource scarcity, gendered responsibilities, and local knowledge systems. The findings also show that intra-household power relations significantly influence innovation adoption. Gendered power imbalances frequently limit women's access to and control over innovations, thereby constraining their ability to adopt practices that could enhance agricultural productivity and household food security. Existing innovation adoption models, such as the Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), tend to treat gender as a dichotomous variable and focus primarily on aggregate gender differences in access to resources and decision-making. As such, these models may fail to capture the relational and socially embedded dynamics through which gender shapes innovation adoption within households and communities. The research contributes novel theoretical and practical insights by illuminating the gendered perception and adoption of pro-poor agricultural innovations in three keyways: First, it advances innovation adoption and subsistence marketplace scholarship by demonstrating that the perceived value and drivers of pro-poor agricultural innovations are not uniform across genders. Women and men prioritise innovations differently based on their socially constructed roles, suggesting that innovation design and dissemination strategies should be aligned with gender-specific priorities and needs. By adopting an ethnographic approach and treating gender as a social construct, the research moves beyond binary and survey-based understandings of gender to provide a more nuanced account of innovation adoption. Second, the research contributes to a deeper understanding of who adopts pro-poor agricultural innovations and why. The identification of distinct adopter profiles provides a basis for more targeted interventions, including subsidies for necessity-driven adopters, peer-learning initiatives for left-behind adopters, and collaborative farm trials involving knowledgeable and experienced adopters. Finally, the research shifts the attention from individual-level explanations of non-adoption towards the structural and institutional arrangements that reproduce gender inequalities. By highlighting how gendered power relations shape access to information, resources, and decision-making authority, the research highlights the need for more equitable innovation dissemination strategies. Such strategies may include gender-awareness programmes, efforts to address structural barriers within households and communities, and the deployment of female extension agents who may be better positioned to engage rural women through shared experiences and identities. The findings have implications for multiple stakeholders. First, Subsistence farmers, particularly women and other marginalised groups, may benefit from more inclusive innovation policies and programmes that reflect their priorities and constraints. Second, the research contributes to academic discourse by extending existing innovation models through empirically grounded, gender-sensitive insights. Finally, the research provides practical guidance for policymakers, development organisations, and research institutions involved in the design and dissemination of pro-poor agricultural innovations, supporting the development of interventions that are more responsive to the diverse realities of farming communities.