Contract farming is growing rapidly in Eastern Africa. This research project will evaluate innovations in contract farming operations designed to increase the benefits wives accrue from the contract. It also evaluates whether this improves the relationship between the household and the firm. It integrates a gender dimension into an otherwise gender-blind area of practice and research. Contract farming is a form of vertical integration within agricultural commodity chains such that a firm has greater control over the production process and final product. Changes in the demand for and supply of agricultural products have increased the popularity of this form of vertical integration in many low-income countries and it is attracting considerable policy and academic attention. While academic work in the 1980s and 1990s offered a mixed assessment of the extent to which contract farming engaged with and benefited smallholders, recent literature offers a much more positive interpretation of smallholder participation. That said, there are still considerable risks for both firms and farms such that contracting operations frequently collapse. For firms, there is a large risk of smallholders side-marketing both inputs and produce. There are also numerous risks for small-scale producers. Two risks are especially important for smallholders: contracting can contribute to a loss of autonomy and control over farm enterprises and a form of dependency on the contracting firm; and, second, the intra-household distribution of labour/income can be altered to the detriment of women's interests. This research project focuses on the last of these risks through evaluating innovations that seek to both increase wives' benefits and to improve the relationships between the firm and the household. This is through adding gender-specific elements to the contract to increase the 'self-enforcement range'. By this we mean that by adding these extra investments within the contract we reduce the likelihood of either party breaking the deal due to a change in market or contextual conditions. The overarching research question is: To what extent and how do gender-specific clauses within contracts improve outcomes for both farms and firms? The subsidiary research questions are: To what extent and how do gender-specific clauses improve the benefits wives accrue from contract farming operations? To what extent and how do such clauses influence farm production? And to what extent and how do such clauses improve the stability and longevity of contract farming relationships? In Malawi, we evaluate the inclusion of a contract for wives to grow and market groundnuts (a conventional crop for women to produce) alongside tobacco to examine effects on yields, prices and, most importantly, the intra-household distribution of labour/income. We do this by combining a randomized design - where members and clubs are randomly assigned the innovation - with a series of qualitative research methods including life history interviews and focus group discussions. The attrition rate (in other words, the number of households dropping from the scheme) will assess whether the farm/firm relationship has changed. In Tanzania, we utilise the same methodology and sequence of research methods but the precise contractual innovation will be determined during the first two months of the project. In the second phase of research, we extend the project to examine gender-specific innovations in palm oil in Ghana and tobacco in Zimbabwe.