Women in Agriculture

Lesson 24 : Feminization of Agriculture- Concept

Women as Agricultural Producers

Official data for the year 2001 in India reported that 53 percent of male workers, 75 percent of all women workers and 85 percent of all rural women workers are in agriculture, and surprisingly, this percentage has declined less than 4 percent since 1972-73 (Government of India, 2001, quoted in Agarwal, 2003:192).

Official data and social perceptions are silent on women’s agricultural work with the exception of admitting their role in livestock and home garden based vegetable production. The reluctance to admit to this form of work may have been because- it was considered to violate purdah norms or simply because it revealed the poverty of the household. Some of the women interviewed said that such work was done only by socially excluded ‘others’: women of the low caste Hindus and indigenous Garos.

In India, we can understand better the changes in the sectoral distribution of labor by using National Sample Survey (NSS) Rounds of 1993-94 and 1999-2000. “Despite the various efforts for improving the coverage of female workers, several of the activities such as collection of fuel, fodder and water; unpaid work in home based enterprises and agro processing work are not adequately captured even by NSS surveys”.