Women Fish Processors in Cambodia: Challenges for Collective Business

One of the ways that small-scale fish processors are able to improve their position in the value chain is to get organised. However, there are many limitations for women fish processors to do so. By analysing the situation of women fish processors in Battambang, Cambodia, the study found that the reasons women have difficulty in organising collective business are not only the characteristics of resources (fluctuating and diminishing supply of fish) or user groups (and women’s time poverty) but the gender power relations that make it impossible for women traders to work collectively. The particular nature of product and market make women processors dependent on Thai traders. Hence they compete rather than cooperate to sell to the Thai market, under the absence of any support to collectively negotiate and improve their position in the value chain.