Power, Agency, and Gender in Agricultural Value Chain Governance: A Feminist Political Economy Analysis in South South Nigeria

Agricultural value chain governance in Nigeria is shaped by power asymmetries that operate along multiple intersecting axes including gender, class, ethnicity, and market position. Feminist political economy frameworks offer analytical tools for examining how these asymmetries are produced and reproduced through value chain structures, market rules, and social norms, yet their application to Nigerian agricultural contexts remains underdeveloped in the research literature. This study applies a feminist political economy analytical framework to examine power, agency, and gender in the governance of the palm oil and cassava value chains in Cross River and Akwa Ibom States in Nigeria's South South geopolitical zone. The mixed methods research design integrates value chain mapping, a structured survey of 300 value chain actors disaggregated by gender, and in-depth life history interviews with 30 women value chain actors. Governance analysis combines lead firm theory with a power geometry approach that identifies structural, discursive, and embodied dimensions of power in value chain interactions. Results reveal that women's participation in value chains is concentrated in the lowest-value segments, and their agency in pricing and product specification negotiations is constrained by both structural market positions and social norms governing appropriate female economic behaviour. Governance rules set by lead firms and processors were found to disadvantage women producers disproportionately through quality requirements that presuppose capital access for equipment. The study contributes an original feminist political economy framework for value chain analysis in Nigerian agriculture and recommends transformative governance reforms that explicitly address gendered power asymmetries. Keywords: feminist political economy, value chain governance, gender, power, South South Nigeria