After we image a farmer in India, the picture is sort of at all times of a person standing tall in a area, sickle in hand, tilling the soil. However the actuality of agriculture on this nation could be very totally different: a majority of farm work is carried out by girls. Roughly 80 p.c of all economically lively girls are employed within the agriculture sector and roughly 40 p.c of the agricultural workforce is girls. 

These girls work on their household land, as each day wage labourers, and in taking care of livestock, making them the spine of our meals programs. But their function in agriculture largely stays invisible and insurance policies not often take them into consideration. However whereas we fail to acknowledge or worth their work, can we actually think about a world through which girls cease farming? Can we even exist in a world the place girls are usually not concerned in agricultural manufacturing?  

On our podcast On the Opposite by IDR, we spoke with Ireena Vittal, one in all India’s most revered impartial consultants and advisers on rising markets, agriculture, and concrete improvement, and Kavitha Kuruganti, activist and founder-convener of Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, in regards to the function girls play in India’s agriculture.  

Under is an edited transcript that gives an summary of the company’ views on the present.   

Indian agriculture is pushed largely by girls  

Kavitha: There may be in all probability no lady who just isn’t a employee, and no rural lady who just isn’t related, not less than peripherally, with agriculture. Amongst girls counted as employees by our official information programs, not less than 73 p.c (as per the newest figures) are engaged in agriculture, [whether as] self-employed [farmers], informal labourers, [or] agricultural labourers. We’re speaking about an important class of employees in agriculture—girls. 

Apart from some gendered roles which might be thrust on males, a lot of the work, akin to transplanting, harvesting, weeding, and sowing, is completed by girls. Indian agriculture is pushed principally by girls placing of their labour. And Indian rural girls are largely surviving off agriculture. It’s nearly a symbiotic relationship. Agriculture wants girls farmers and girls farmers want agriculture.  

Ireena: We’re not speaking of the 30–40 million wealthy farmers who use a variety of labour. We’re speaking in regards to the 100 million the place the lady offers the labour. [In India,] 35–38 p.c [of agriculture] is livestock. Livestock on this nation, whether or not it’s dairy, poultry, or fish farming, is totally dealt with by girls. Amul’s cooperative motion in Gujarat, as an illustration, demonstrated that because the hygiene of the animal was improved, so did hygiene of the household and kids. And there’s analysis that reveals that as a result of girls led this work, the general hygiene of villages improved. Within the livestock sector, nothing would occur if the ladies weren’t concerned. Even in wealthy households with six to 10 milch animals, the psychological possession of the animals is at all times with the lady. 

Insurance policies overlook farmers, particularly girls 

Ireena: In relation to agriculture coverage, the federal government has three mindsets.  

1. The primary considerations the worth of agriculture produce versus inflation. The worth [paid by] the buyer is the margin of the farmer. However our authorities focuses much more on inflation administration than on guaranteeing the fitting worth for the farmer. And on the drop of a hat, costs might be diminished as a result of the buyer worth index (CPI) shouldn’t go [up]. The CPI is the calculation of inflation, and India is likely one of the few nations the place 50 p.c of the weightage of inflation is meals. So, we ourselves have created a monster.  
2. The second mindset is meals safety versus the enterprise of agriculture. We’re so fixated on meals safety—we nonetheless haven’t gotten over the Bengal famine or the Inexperienced Revolution—that we’re not in a position to recognise that agriculture is definitely a enterprise. It’s the single largest personal enterprise within the Indian financial system—it’s 14–16 p.c of the GDP. Even when I take dairy, which is one element of it, it’s as massive because the nation’s largest manufacturing sector: cars. However no person thinks of farming as a enterprise. We consider it as meals safety. 
3. The third mindset is subsidy versus funding. Worldwide, agriculture is subsidised not as a result of farmers are poor however as a result of they’re taking a threat on behalf of all of the residents. Who runs a enterprise the place you rely on a pest not [attacking] your crop, or a hailstorm not taking place 10 days earlier than you the harvest? Our farmers take the largest dangers of all. And due to this fact, all people subsidises agriculture. Even essentially the most open market on the planet, the EU, has one sector subsidised: agriculture. So, it’s not that we don’t have to subsidise it, [but] that we additionally have to spend money on R&D, capital, and provide chain. However we don’t have this mindset and body it as subsidy versus funding quite than subsidy and funding. 

Loads of our coverage choices are pushed by these mindsets far more than considering of agriculture as a vibrant sector run by entrepreneurs on behalf of the nation whereas taking dangers. [Nor does policy] give attention to diet, driving funding, and most significantly, balancing the necessity for profitability with the necessity for managing inflation for the typical individual. 

Kavitha: I imagine that diet safety has an answer in agriculture, and policymakers should be oriented in direction of that. Equally, options for useful resource regeneration on a really massive scale—and we’re speaking about pure and productive assets that type the very foundation of the livelihoods of crores of individuals on this nation—largely lie in agriculture. So useful resource regeneration have to be addressed by means of agriculture. Local weather change, each by way of mitigation and adaptation, [must also be addressed through] agriculture. All of those are points that any policymaker should be interested by. However sadly, what we’ve got—each in [central] authorities and state insurance policies—are associated to the truth that the federal government thinks in regards to the agricultural sector as another, nearly irrelevant, half of the financial system. The federal government should take into consideration individuals and the planet when it thinks about agriculture. There’s a heavy client bias, which displays a policy-[level] ignorance of [the fact] that almost all of our customers are literally producers. This dichotomy of [seeing] customers [only] on the finish of a provide chain is, to today, not true in India. The hungriest and most malnourished are collaborating within the meals manufacturing course of. Agriculture is likely one of the riskiest personal enterprises. Nothing is within the management of farmers, not even the land. The federal government should be lowering dangers, however it’s not doing it. Most significantly, it’s not who’s invisible among the many producers, and therein come girls farmers. 

Girls are pushing again 

Ireena: Lots of people who work in agriculture, whether or not it’s agri-economists or scientists, know that girls work. In the event you communicate to any poultry integrator or dairy proprietor, he’ll speak to you repeatedly about girls. It is a larger social query of ‘Do girls have rights and do they get acknowledged?’ and it goes again to the age-old challenge of who needs to surrender energy. And sadly or fortuitously, energy isn’t given; it’s taken. 

Pradan had been doing outstanding work with teams of poultry girls farmers for over 20 years. After we visited these girls, they have been making ready for his or her annual journey to Bhopal. Yearly, tons of of them would board 5 buses and spend two days strolling up and down the street the place the state legislature sits. I requested why they did this, and it price them almost two lakhs on the time. They advised me: “After we stroll in Bhopal, individuals know we’ve got arrived. The District Justice of the Peace (DM) is aware of, typically even Shivraj Chauhan comes out to satisfy us. And once we return, the native administration is aware of we have been in Bhopal.” 

These have been girls poultry farmers who had determined to construct a voice for themselves, one thing far simpler stated than performed. However over time, with each capital and functionality, they did. And this was 10–12 years in the past, girls who had by no means studied, whose daughters have been now at school. After 30 years of Pradan’s work, their collective turnover had grown to just about ₹100 crore.  

Looking back, this story is straightforward to inform. In the event you’re a lone lady otherwise you’re a part of one SHG in the midst of some state, it’s troublesome. It’s about energy dynamics and economics. And that change will take some extra time, and I feel that’s what we have to do. 

Kavitha: I see glimpses of nice hope, and there are moments of despair too. Even by way of coverage discourse, issues have modified. In the event you take a look at this nice 14-volume report on doubling farmers’ incomes in India, the agriculture extension–associated quantity [contains some] extraordinarily progressive issues about girls farmers are. All the shift underway in Andhra Pradesh by means of the Andhra Pradesh Neighborhood Managed Pure Farming programme is going on on the energy of girls’s collectives. In the event you dip into the experiences of Deccan Growth Society [in Telangana], or Anandi in addition to the Working Group for Girls and Land Possession (a community organisation) in Gujarat, you may see that how girls are organising themselves to claim their identification as farmers. There are fairly a number of issues that they can change in these areas. So there may be hope. We’ve obtained to collectively preserve alive the visibility of girls farmers and their monumental contribution, and never let the world overlook it. This might be performed by the ladies farmers themselves by discovering a voice and area to articulate it, but in addition many others supporting the wrestle. 

The general financial system runs on the unpaid, unvalued, and unremunerated work of girls. After we visualise annadata (meals supplier), it’s actually the lady who’s feeding you from the kitchen in addition to toiling within the farm. And I can’t think about farming taking place with out girls.  

Recognising girls farmers can reshape agriculture  

Ireena: To start with, if we have been to recognise the labour of girls, the worth of meals would go up, as a result of we’d account for the price for this labour. In the event you’re a wealthy farmer paying for migrant labour, you’d account for the price; however when it’s a girl, you don’t. And that is equally true in poultry and dairy, and in horticulture, the place a lot of the work is completed by girls. So, first, it might price labour. However the second factor is that in case you accounted for the price of this labour, whether or not the lady labourer obtained paid or not, she would have company. And a girl who has company begins constructing belongings and altering the steadiness sheet of a household. Once more, [this is true] far more for the 100 million small farmers than for the 30–40 million wealthy ones. So, some type of intergenerational wealth accumulation will begin taking place.  

Kavitha: If policymaking modified to acknowledge that girls farmers do matter, I feel two broad issues will occur.  

[The first] is definitely that the ladies themselves might be empowered in quite a few methods. There are research that present that [since] new-age farmer producer organisations (FPOs)—that are being created with a lot fanfare—are being gender-blind, [they are] growing the disparity between female and male farmers in a village. But when insurance policies have been designed as if girls mattered, meals crops, polycropping, and so forth would come again into farming. As a result of a girl would naturally attempt to make life simpler for herself, with a purpose to carry out roles which were thrust on her.   

The [second] side is that the paradigm of farming will change considerably. And that features higher pricing for meals in addition to a nurturing of pure assets. Eco-feminists argue that girls are likely to have a world view and ethos that’s totally different from males. Particularly whenever you thrust them right into a market paradigm, there’s a sure perspective that they bring about which isn’t just like males’s. There are research that present that when girls farm collectively, profitability is definitely greater in comparison with household farming, the place a person and a girl farm collectively. 

You’ll be able to take heed to the total episode right here. 

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Know extra 

• Study extra in regards to the systemic limitations that affect girls farmers.  
• Find out how girls farmers in Andhra Pradesh are serving to the transition to sustainable farming. 
• Learn extra about Punjab’s Dalit girls farmers who don’t personal land.