Cultivating change: exploring the link between certification, dietary quality and women’s empowerment among coffee farmers in Rwanda

Sustainability standards promise not only to promote environmentally friendly production, but also to improve farmers’ livelihoods by linking them to high-value markets. While there has been extensive research on how sustainability standards affect farmers’ incomes, much less attention has been paid to whether sustainability standards can help improve smallholders’ diets. In addition, the role of women’s empowerment as a potential pathway through which sustainability standards may affect nutrition has remained largely unexplored. Using cross-sectional survey data from 711 coffee farmers in Rwanda (283 non-certified and 428 certified under Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade, Organic, or Café Practice), we assess the impact of certification on dietary quality and the potential mediating role of women’s empowerment. Dietary quality is measured using the Dietary Quality Questionnaire (DQQ), a standardized tool implemented globally in more than 50 countries. Women’s empowerment is captured through an aggregated empowerment score reflecting production and related capacity building, access to and decision-making over productive resources, control over income, and time allocation. Using inverse probability weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA), we find positive associations between certification and dietary quality outcomes. In addition, results of mediation analyses show that women’s empowerment mediates part of this relationship especially through women’s empowerment in agricultural production. Our findings suggest that enhancing women’s empowerment within certification schemes is not only an important goal in itself, but can also make a significant contribution to improving smallholders’ dietary quality outcomes.