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Women are a vital part of Indian economy. Over the years, there is a gradual realization of the key role of women in agricultural development and their vital contribution in the field of agriculture, food security, horticulture, processing, nutrition, sericulture, fisheries, and other allied sectors. Women form the backbone of agriculture, in India, Comprising the majority of agricultural laborers, women have been putting in labour not only in terms of physical output but also in terms of quality and efficiency. Women are critical to the well-being of farm households. Aside from raising children, women are expected to prepare all meals, maintain the homestead, and assist in crop and animal production, all the while tending to the general health of their families. Perhaps, ironically, it is because women have so many responsibilities that they have been over-looked by agriculturalists and policy makers – it has been more convenient to label men as farmers and women as child raisers and cooks. In truth, women are involved in all aspects of agriculture, from crop selection to land preparation, to seed selection, planting, weeding, pest control, harvesting, crop storage, handling, marketing, and processing. Whatever the reason for this neglect, the importance of developing farming technologies relevant to women has only recently been recognized.
Women play a major role in decision making process in traditional agriculture, but they are virtually not recognized as producer within their own right. Due to socio-cultural traditions the rural women have subordinate role in the society. They have inaccessibility to modern technology, credit, training and other facilities available to male workers and farmer. Their role has become passive due to ignorance of modern inputs and methods of cultivation. Their regain energy is spent in procuring fuel, fodder, food and water and has little time to improve, heir skills. In the process they have lagged behind their male colleagues in use of improved bullock drawn production and processing tools and machinery. Besides hand tools and improved bullock drawn implements, more than 240,000 tractors and 700,000 irrigation pumps are being introduced every year for mechanization of Indian agriculture. But these improved implements are exclusively handled by male workers. The women continue to perform farm operations which are full of drudgery such as transplanting, weeding, winnowing, shelling, decorticating, milling etc.
Rural Women form the most important productive work force in the economy of majority of the developing nations including India. Agriculture, the single largest production endeavour in India, contributing about 18% of GDP, is increasingly becoming a Female Activity. Agriculture sector employs 4/5th of all economically active women in the country. 48% of India’s self-employed farmers are women. There are 75 million women engaged in dairying as against 15 million men and 20 million in animal husbandry as compared to 1.5 million men.
Beyond the conventional market-oriented narrower definition of ‘productive workers’, almost all women in rural India today can be considered as ‘farmers’ in some sense, working as agricultural labour, unpaid workers in the family farm enterprise, or combination of the two. Moreover, several farm activities traditionally carried out by men are also being undertaken by women as men are pulled away into higher paying employment.
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