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Essay: Overcoming Challenges faced by Women in the Agricultural Sector

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  • Subject area(s): Business essays
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  • Published: 28 January 2019*
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  • Words: 1,294 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 6 (approx)

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Introduction

The empowerment of Indian women will remain incomplete without empowering those living at its margins. Playing a vital role in the agricultural sector (as it is largely a household enterprise,) women comprise on average 43% of the agricultural labour force in developing countries, ranging from 20% in Latin America to almost 50% in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In India, the 2011 census figures assign 32.8% women as primary workers in the agricultural sector, but most remain outside the formal definition of worker in the report as they are not listed as primary earners and owners of agricultural assets like land within their families. Thus, the voice of the woman farmer goes unheard due to patriarchal traditions, her efforts undervalued, and her energy misutilized. From preparing the land, selecting seeds, preparing and sowing, transplanting, applying manure, fertilisers, and pesticides, weeding to harvesting, winnowing, and threshing, women in India and across the world perform all agricultural functions yet their access to resources is less than their male counterparts. The maintenance of ancillary branches in this sector, like animal husbandry, pisciculture, sericulture, and vegetable cultivation depends almost solely on women. It is imperative that policymakers and relevant stakeholders make an effort to provide women working in the agricultural sector with due recognition to abet their access to productive inputs like land, farm labor, technology like fertilizers, mechanical equipment, transport, and storage, financial services like credit and extensions, education, and markets. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that if women had the same access to productive resources as men, farm yields would increase by 20-30%, raising the agricultural output by up to 4% and thereby reducing the number of hungry people in the world by 12–17% (100-150 million people.) In addition to increases in production and income, closing the gender gap in agriculture will generate broader social and economic benefits by strengthening women’s direct access to, and control over, resources and incomes. Increased control over income gives women a stronger bargaining position over economic decisions regarding consumption, investment, and production. When women have more influence over economic decisions, their families allocate more income to food, health, education, children’s clothing, and children’s nutrition. Improved gender equality in access to opportunities and returns on assets will have a long-lasting impact on economic growth by raising the level of human capital in society, thereby spurring socio-economic development.

The Gender Gap in Agriculture

Swaminathan, a famous Indian agricultural scientist describes women to primarily have domesticated crop plants to initiate the art and science of farming. While men went out hunting in search of food, women started gathering seeds from native flora and began cultivating those of interest for food, fodder, fibre, and fuel.

In India, the share of the economically active female population that is engaged in the agricultural sector stands at 84%. The 2011 census figures list only 32.8% women formally as primary workers in the agricultural sector, in contrast to 81.1% men. Women make up about 33% of cultivators and about 47% percent of agricultural laborers. These statistics do not account for work in livestock, fisheries, and various other ancillary forms of food production in the country. Women’s participation rate in the agricultural sectors is about 47% in tea plantations, 46% in cotton cultivation, 45% growing oil seeds, and 39% in vegetable production. While these crops require labor-intensive work, the work is considered quite unskilled and their economic contribution of being an agriculture worker is further suppressed under the status of family members who work in the farm in addition to her regular household chores. According to a report by the FAO: a pair of bullocks works 1,064 hours, a man 1,212 hours and a woman 3,485 hours per year on a one hectare farm. This figure illustrates the woman’s significant contribution to agro-production. It is distressing that in all agricultural activities there is an average gender wage disparity, with women earning only 70% of men’s wage. Additionally, many women participate in agricultural work as unpaid subsistence labor. Unlike male farmers and cultivators, females remained doubly burdened during their peak productive period, with their reproductive role seen as fundamental to their gender. As women labor in the fields, they simultaneously continue to have and rear children almost single-handedly. In addition to rigorous agricultural work that is undervalued and underpaid, women are also responsible for the well-being of the household. An average Indian female agriculture worker spends around 25 hours doing in a week doing household chores and 5 hours in caring and community work and faces the oppressive status of being majorly responsible for family and household maintenance. Besides this 30 hours of unpaid work, women spend the same amount of time as men carrying out agricultural work. Girls do significantly more housework than boys, which compromises their education. Women seldom enjoy property ownership rights in their names. They have little control over decisions made in reference to land. For the few with land in their names, they may not have actual decision-making power in terms of cropping patterns, sale, mortgage and the purchase of land. Access to credit is difficult, since women lack many of the prerequisites such as assets or ownership of property. Without access to capital or household decision making abilities, women lack the resources that are necessary for their personal and household stability. However, India’s agricultural industry, which employs 80 to 100 million women simply cannot survive without their labor.

Women lack the resources and opportunities they need to make the most productive use of their time. Women are farmers, workers, and entrepreneurs, but almost everywhere they face a surprisingly consistent gender gap in access to productive assets, inputs and services. This hinders productivity and reduces their contributions to the agriculture sector, and to the achievement of broader economic and social development goals. Closing the gender gap in agriculture would produce significant gains for society by increasing agricultural productivity, reducing poverty and hunger and promoting economic growth. Gender-aware policy support and well designed development projects can help close this gender gap. Given existing inequities, it is not enough that policies be gender-neutral; overcoming the constraints faced by women requires much more. It is important to underline that female farmers are just as efficient as male farmers but they produce less because they control less land, use fewer inputs and have less access to important services.

Feminization of Agriculture

According to a NSSO (National Sample Survey Office) survey, a decline in both male and female labour force in agriculture has been observed in the last three decades. The number of men in agriculture has decreased from 81% to 63%, and women from 88% to 79%. As men migrate to urban areas and to non-farm sectors in response to both the distress in agriculture and better job opportunities elsewhere, women’s responsibility both as workers and as farm managers has been growing, leading to an increased feminization of agriculture. 84% economically active women are engaged in farm-related activities in India. Out of them, 33% are working as agricultural labourers and 48% are self-employed farmers. According to the NSSO report, women lead almost 18% agricultural households and there is not a single vertical in primary production that they are not involved in. However, female farmers are largely excluded from modern contract-farming arrangements because they lack secure control over land, family
labour, and ot
her resources required to guarantee delivery of a reliable flow of produce. Modern agricultural value chains have led to the emergence of of contract farming or out-grower schemes for high-value produce through which large scale agro-processing firms seek to ensure a steady supply of quality produce. Such schemes can help small-scale farmers and livestock producers overcome the technical barriers and transaction costs involved in meeting the increasingly stringent demands of urban consumers in domestic and international markets. So, while men control the contracts, much of the farm work done on contracted plots is performed by women as family labourers.

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