This working paper presents findings from a study on the gendered implications of the expansion in commercial sugarcane production in Magobbo, Zambia carried out for a Masters Thesis at Carleton University, and conducted in partnership with the ESRC-DFID Joint Poverty Alleviation Programme, Grant ES/J01754X/1. I would like to thank the participants of this study who generously gave up their time to help produce the insights reflected here. Special thanks as well to Dr. Ruth Hall of the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape for her support and connecting me with the Future Agricultures Consortium to collaborate on the Land and Agricultural Commercialization in Africa (LACA) multi-country study. For their support of the LACA project and this contribution, I extend my gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers of this paper. I am also grateful for the opportunity to work with Chrispin Matenga and Jessica Chu in Zambia. Finally, I thank Dr. Jean Daudelin for offering guidance on the design of my initial study and comments on a draft of this paper. The author remains responsible for any remaining errors and omissions.

This paper presents evidence on the gender differentiated effects in the nucleus-estate outgrower arrangement from a case study of a sugarcane outgrower scheme in the community of Magobbo, Zambia. Specifically, the paper explores women's participation in the scheme, access to employment, decision-making, control of household income, and access to natural resources. Women are disadvantaged in these areas overall, though there is a key generational difference. As well, both women and men enjoy increased economic stability and improvements in family diets. I find that the outcomes observed are influenced by: 1) the existing inequalities in access to land and discriminatory gender norms; 2) the institutional arrangements of the outgrower model; and 3) the gendered division of labour. These findings contribute a nuanced discussion of the gender differentiated effects of agricultural investments to the literature on women in contract farming and large-scale land acquisitions for agriculture.iii