Can feminisation of agriculture be equated with girls empowerment | UPSC Present Affairs Information

Girls contribute round 63 per cent of the agricultural labour power in India, but they lack entry to key assets corresponding to land possession, finance, and superior farming applied sciences. On this context, what does the feminisation of agriculture indicate? Does this rising participation of girls in agriculture – usually pushed by male outmigration – signify empowerment or does it reinforce gender disparity in land rights and decision-making energy?

What does the feminine workforce participation price say?

The feminine workforce participation price in India reached its peak at 40.8 % in 2004-05 however has declined since. Nevertheless, since 2017, the feminine labour power participation price (FLPR) has seen a rising development after years of decline. This enhance has been extra pronounced within the post-Covid years. The agricultural FLPR elevated from 41.5% in 2022-23 to 47.6% in 2023-24, whereas the city FLPR elevated from 25.4% to twenty-eight% over the identical time interval. 

This progress in FLPR might be attributed to the financial restoration following the easing of lockdown restrictions, which prompted many ladies who had been beforehand not a part of the labour power to hunt employment. As well as, the sudden rise in FLPR in the previous few years has additionally been linked to financial misery, which has compelled extra girls to search for various earnings sources. 

The feminisation of the Indian labour power, or the rise within the variety of girls taking part in paid work, nonetheless, requires a deeper examination. The rise in FLPR is essentially pushed by the rise in self-employment amongst girls, particularly in agriculture. Evaluation of state-wise census information signifies that in states the place girls’s workforce participation has elevated, it has been primarily pushed by the rise in girls’s function in agriculture. 

This development highlights the dearth of non-farm job alternatives for ladies, with most employment alternatives for rural girls remaining confined to agriculture.

How will we outline feminisation of agriculture?

This results in feminisation of agriculture. Financial literature interprets feminisation of agriculture in two methods. First, it refers to a rise within the proportion of farm associated work undertaken by girls, together with their rising obligations as smallholder cultivators or informal agricultural wage staff. 

Second, feminisation of agriculture may indicate an understanding of girls’s management, possession, and participation in agricultural assets and social processes. This consists of girls’s possession of farmland, land rights, and decision-making energy over crop choice and enter utilization, corresponding to fertilizer utility.

A number of components contribute to the feminisation of agriculture. The structural transformation of the Indian economic system has led to a declining share of agriculture in GDP, with a shift from agriculture to the service sector. Moreover, rural misery has compelled males to hunt livelihood alternatives exterior agriculture, usually migrating to non-farm sectors. 

Quite a few different components corresponding to declining agricultural manufacturing and productiveness, rising price of agricultural inputs, increased dangers of crop injury as a consequence of local weather change, restricted employment alternatives, and the rising aspirations of newly literate youth in rural areas have additional fueled male migration out of rural areas. Because of this, girls who’re left behind tackle a number of obligations, significantly in farm work.

Gender disparity in land possession

The Nationwide Fee on Farmers’ 2005 report discovered that an rising variety of girls are endeavor agricultural duties corresponding to caring for the land and dealing as helpers. It’s estimated that ladies undertake round 80% of India’s farm work and make up over 42% of the agricultural workforce. In keeping with PLFS 2023-24 information, over three-quarters (76.95) of rural girls are engaged in agriculture.    

Regardless of their important contribution, feminine farmers stay largely invisible. The Agriculture Census of 2015-16 reported that whereas 73% of rural girls staff are engaged in agriculture, solely about 11.72% of the full operated space within the nation is managed by feminine operational holders. This displays the gender disparity in land possession and management. Moreover, girls’s landholdings are predominantly small and marginal, which will be attributed to longstanding patterns of unequal land distribution.

In India, girls can purchase land by way of inheritance, reward, buy, or authorities transfers. Nevertheless, these programs are sometimes skewed in opposition to their equal participation. For example, girls usually tend to be financially constrained than males to buy land, making inheritance one in all their main technique of land possession. But, social biases and norms make it troublesome for ladies to inherit and management land. 

The 2017 Uttar Pradesh land distribution programme will be highlighted right here. Land titles had been distributed to 331 landless households in two villages in Mirzapur district of the state – Sirsi and Karkad. 80 land titles had been distributed in Sirsi, together with eight to single girls, and 251 land titles had been distributed in Karkad, together with 16 to single girls. This implies solely 7% of the land titles went to single girls. Research have additionally underlined that land rights play an necessary function in girls’s financial safety and decision-making energy.

In direction of gender fairness in agriculture

It has usually been acknowledged that ladies’s participation in paid work shouldn’t be confused with their empowerment. Girls usually face a “double burden of labor” the place they’re compelled to take care of a stability between paid employment and unpaid family and caregiving obligations. Equally, girls’s involvement in agriculture doesn’t essentially equate to empowerment. 

The agrarian economic system in India has been going by way of misery with a fall in agricultural incomes. Therefore, girls’s engagement in agriculture as cultivators is probably not economically empowering, particularly within the absence of viable non-farm employment alternatives. Furthermore, analysis has additionally discovered that ladies normally lack important decision-making powers in relation to make use of of fertilizers, family belongings, various livelihood choices, and so on. 

The feminisation of agriculture is commonly mentioned alongside the feminisation of poverty or feminisation of agrarian misery. As male family members migrate looking for higher alternatives, the ladies left behind are compelled to maneuver into agriculture – usually seen as a much less advantageous livelihood possibility. 

Moreover, unequal land distribution and the dearth of land possession amongst feminine farmers make it troublesome for them to entry credit score and different monetary assets. This, in flip, limits their eligibility for some authorities schemes and advantages. Research have additionally discovered that ladies are much less prone to avail loans below schemes just like the Kisan Credit score Card and are additionally much less prone to obtain help from schemes just like the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana. 

As well as, the picture of a farmer has at all times been related to males. Until this notion modifications, feminine farmers will proceed to be neglected. Agriculture is not only about sowing and harvesting – it’s also about investing in land and important decision-making. Due to this fact, measures like putting girls on the core of insurance policies round agriculture, equal distribution of land, equal entry to mechanization, and gender-responsive local weather mitigation insurance policies would assist in reaching gender fairness in agriculture. 

Publish Learn Questions

How does the rise in farm-related work undertaken by girls contribute to the feminisation of agriculture?

In what methods does feminisation of agriculture relate to girls’s management, possession, and participation in agricultural assets?

Why is girls’s possession of farmland and decision-making energy over agricultural assets essential for his or her empowerment?

What coverage measures can assist obtain gender fairness in agriculture?

(Ritwika Patgiri is a doctoral candidate on the College of Economics, South Asian College.)

Share your ideas and concepts on UPSC Particular articles with ashiya.parveen@indianexpress.com.

Subscribe to our UPSC publication and keep up to date with the information cues from the previous week.

Keep up to date with the newest UPSC articles by becoming a member of our Telegram channel – IndianExpress UPSC Hub, and observe us on Instagram and X.