Women in Agriculture

Lesson 24 : Feminization of Agriculture- Concept

Feminization of Agriculture in India

The phenomenon of increasing feminization of agriculture has drawn policy attention in recent years. However, the causes, the extent and its impact on women and productivity have not received sufficient concern in policy and practice throughout the India. Insufficient attention to some work arena where women are most active such as cultivation of crops and vegetables, regeneration of degraded forests, wasteland development and watershed development had shown that women’s contributions and concerns remain invisible in planning and thus they are ignored. Further, the stress on self-employment and dependence on institutional credit in most land-based economic activities meant that women who are mostly landless in many ESAP countries, would not be eligible for assistance beyond the rearing of livestock for income.

Although it has been recognized that rural women have an important role in livestock (such as animal care, grazing, fodder collection, cleaning of animal shed, processing of milk and sale of livestock products), their control over livestock and product is minimal. With some regional variations, women account for 93 percent of employment in dairy production in India. But 75 percent of dairy cooperative membership is male (Sujaya, 2005). Women’s livestock activities have been conventionally viewed as an extension of domestic work around the house.