Daughters of the Soil: Feminization of Indian Agriculture
- August 22, 2021
- In collaboration with :
- Written By : The Agri Collaboratory
The term “Feminization of Agriculture” found its way a few years ago, in the 2017-18 Economic Survey. The gender shift in agriculture is understandable. The urban migration of men in search for more lucrative opportunities has resulted in women playing the role of entrepreneur, cultivator, and often farm labourer.
As women today lead grape-cultivation in Nashik, or cotton cultivation in Gujarat, the fact remains that women face inordinate challenges in the agricultural sector, despite their contribution.
As per an Oxfam India report, the Agriculture sector employs a whopping 80% of all economically active women in India; additionally - women comprise 33% of the agriculture labor force and 48% of self- employed farmers, collectively producing a bulk of India’s food and dairy output.
Women’s work in agriculture is as expected, in addition to her role as a wife, a daughter-in-law and as a mother.
However, we continue to let our daughters of the soil down, through policies and processes that often don’t recognize them as farmers thereby denying them institutional support from banks, lenders, insurance providers, cooperatives, and government departments. Traditionally, women are used to cultivating land with little to no resources available, often accounting for scarcity of water, fertilizers and pesticides. This was one of the reasons why their contribution during the pandemic was immediately evident. Interestingly, the FAO has estimated that if women had similar access to productive resources as men, there would be a 20-30% increase in agricultural yield. This would ultimately raise national agricultural output by up to 4%.
Only 13% of women farmers, own the land they till, or have formal land rights, due to growing land
fragmentation. Persistently low female ownership of farmland occurs in all regions ranging from 28 per cent in the hills, to only around 8 per cent each in the east and west.
Across India, as many as 40 to 60% of women widowed by farmer suicides are yet to obtain rights to the farmland they cultivate. Further, only 35% secured the rights to their family house. What is worse, these farm widows are burdened with outstanding debts against loans they didn’t take, consequently becoming ineligible for fresh loans that they do need. The numerous barriers faced in land ownership include lack of legal awareness about their inheritance rights and the skewed implementation of laws fuelling gendered social discrimination.
As land is used as collateral for credit loans, lack of property rights by the women creates an inability to access credit resulting in inadequate investment for the land they cultivate and also in women being excluded from contract farming arrangements.
The way forward:
In 2011, M S Swaminathan proposed the Women Farmers Entitlement Bill, to alleviate women from a set of challenges they face. These range from access to resources to land ownership.
Outlined below are a few recommendations:
- Introduce women-only benefits and schemes. Earmark at least 30% of budget allocation for women beneficiaries in all ongoing schemes/programs and development activities.
- Expand provision of credit without collateral under the micro-finance initiative of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). In this regard the transformational work being done by “Agri Alliance for Innovation” in partnership with entities like Cropin, IISc, Nasscom CoE, Samunnati, ITC, Govt of Telangana etc. would be of direct benefit to raise credit for women farmers with no titles to their farms.
- Self-help groups to be extended as a social enterprise for women, to help access micro-credit.
- Improve female landholding patterns by including them in land records.
- Enhance female representation in different Agri decision-making bodies and in Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO) to ensure access to better quality inputs, like seeds and fertilizers. Encourage formation of female FPOs.
- Train women in modern, sustainable agricultural techniques tailored to local conditions, through Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) and State Government departments.
- Accelerate farm mechanization by making it affordable with new shared business models and through women-friendly machinery.
- While the future of farming in India may be female, we owe it to the millions of Indian women to ensure they receive investment and support from both governmental and private organizations, encouraging their participation in the sector, sustained profitability and help in balancing their role as a women farmer and home maker.
Navya M,
Consultant, Agri Alliance for Innovation,