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AGRO ECONOMIC RESEARCH CENTRE (AERC) PLATINUM JUBILEE CONFERENCE ON “SUSTAINABILITY OF AGRICULTURAL SECTOR: ISSUES, CHALLENGES AND POLICY MATRIX”
Women Cultivators:Accessing their empowerment for Sustainable Agriculture
Insights from a study in Maharashtra
Jayanti Kajale Atreyee Sinha Chakraborty Gokhlae Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune
Introduction
- (^) Women across the globe are engaged in numerous agricultural operations and largely contribute to the global agri food production.
- (^) However, their contribution to the food production largely remains unrecongnised as very often it is considered to be extension of unpaid domestic services specially in countries like India.
- (^) Empowering women cultivators is crucial for India in achieving Sustainable Development Goals like SDG 2 (zero hunger) and SDG 5 (gender parity). Women cultivators play an important role in agricultural production, yet they often lack land ownership titles leading to lesser access to government schemes or agricultural extension services.
- (^) Also, the prevailing gender norms relating to division of labour and insufficient access to land, critical services, information and technologies affects their potential for income generation.
- (^) Amidst growing concerns about various challenges faced by the agricultural sector there is the growing recognition about necessity for implementing women centric schemes for the agricultural sector which would increase their productivity and empower them for becoming visible part of the food supply chains and contribute to enhancing global food security.
- (^) Given the substantial engagement of the female cultivators in the family farms, the key question is to what extent women cultivators get opportunities for upgradation of their set of information, knowledge and skills relating to various agricultural operations and farming.
Need for the Study
- (^) Challenges faced due to gender related secondary role played by the women in agricultural sector
- (^) Majority of the women who cultivate their farms do not have title to the land and are less likely to be beneficiaries of various government schemes or extension activities.
- (^) Lower literacy rates and lower exposure to information often puts constraints to their learning about markets and new technologies
- (^) A number of women are unaware of the related financial transactions, amount of credit availed from institutional and non-institutional sources, input prices etc.
- (^) On such background, it is revealed that the agrarian distress in states like Maharashtra has increased the magnitude of the challenges faced by the women in the cultivator households.
Maharashtra-
- (^) Maharashtra - is one of the leading states in India
- The average share of the State in All-India nominal GDP is highest (13.9 per cent) as estimated in 2022-
- (^) During 2022-23, average share of ‘Services’ sector (57.1 per cent) is highest in the nominal GSVA of the State, followed by ‘Industry’ sector (30.9 per cent) and ‘Agriculture & allied activities’ sector (12.0 per cent).
- (^) It is also a state with higher Human Development Index (HDI) of 0.697 than that of India (0.646) for the year 2019
Objectives
- (^) To study the awareness and participation of the women cultivators in various government schemes, their access to information and knowledge about farming, their role in decision making relating to cultivation as a member of the household and the level of empowerment.
- (^) To suggest types of policies that need to be implemented for improving female cultivators’ access to resources, capacity building for enhancing their empowerment and productivity.
Methodology
- (^) Study was based on secondary and primary data. Data collected for the year 2020-
- (^) Primary data was collected through a structured questionnaire.
- (^) Informal discussions were held with agricultural assistants and farmer friends in the selected villages.
- (^) Using the data collected from the field, Women's Empowerment Index for Agriculture (WEIA) for the respondents of Pune and Latur constructed.
- (^) Based on WEIA, level of disempowerment / inadequacy in each indicator was also found.
- (^) Respondents were cross classified according to level of inadequacy on one hand and social status, household income, education and land size on the other.
Districts Indicator Pune Latur Maharashtra 1 Human Development Index (2011) 0.814 0.663 0. 2 Per capita net district income (at current prices), 2020- (Rs)
3 Share of female cultivators in total main rural female cultivators of the state (percent) (Census 2011)
4 Share of total main female cultivators in total main rural cultivators within the district (percent) (Census 2011)
5 Share of total main female cultivators in total main rural workers (within the district (percent)) (Census 2011)
Developing the Index
• Field level data collected from the women respondents was
analysed to find their socio economic characteristics as well as
their contribution to the household farming activity.
In order to find the status of their empowerment as women
cultivators, their responses relating to different dimensions were
elicited through a number of appropriate questions (indicators).
• These seven dimensions were - production, resources, income,
ownership of land, community participation and awareness
about farming, digital literacy and finally capacity building.
Indicators of Empowerment Domain Indicator Weight 1 Production Decision relating to production (7 sub- indicators) 1/ 2 Ownership of assets Ownership of land 1/ 3 Resources Decisions relating to purchase of assests ( 2 sub-indicators) 1/ Access to and decision about credit ( 2 sub-indicators) 1/ 4 Income Control over use of Income (2 sub-indicators) 1/ 5 Community Participation and awareness/knowledge Group membership (SHG) (3 subindicators) 1/ Awareness on various schemes for farmers and concepts in agriculture (23 sub -indicators 1/ 6 Digital literacy Usage of mobile, computer and internet (6 sub -ndicators) 1/ 7 Capacity building Involvement in self-learning for self improvement 1/ Attending workshops / Program for promoting agriculture or non- agriculture business 1/
Empowerment of Respondents
- (^) After specifying domains and indicators the objective was to findd the inadequacies. K was the inadequacy score which was 0 for completely adequate and 1 for completely inadequate.
- (^) It was difficult to find 0 inadequacy, so inadequacy cut off was raised to k=0.2.
- (^) The disempowerment head count ratio (censored k>0.2) was 98% for Pune and 95% for Latur.
- (^) The average inadequacy score was 0.44 for Pune and 0,42 for Latur.
- (^) The extentof disempowerment M(product of Hr and As) was 0.43 for Pune and 0.40 for Latur.
- (^) The analysis of the data showed that the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index ( WEAI) was 0.60 for Latur and 0.57 for Pune.
- (^) This indicates that extent of inadequacy / disempowerment was 0.40 in Latur and 0.43 in Pune
- (^) In spite of differences in socio economic conditions of respondents in Pune and Latur, the WEIA in Latur district was marginally higher than in Pune.
- (^) Various areas (indicator) of higher inadequacies or disempowerment and their share in total inadequacy were found.
Distric t Productio n decision Assets Ownershi p Resource Decision Income Decisio n SHG, Knowledge and awareness Digital Literacy Capacity Building Purchase, sale and transfer of asset Decision on credit Communit y participatio n Awareness on various programs and schemes Self learnin g Attendi ng worksh op/train ing Pune (^) 4.72 28.06 2.36 3.47 2.22 7.08 14.86 8.6 14.86 13. Latur (^) 5.90 29.20 2.80 2.51 5.31 4.28 15.63 8.26 14.75 11. Source : Based on field work Share of each indicator in Disempowerment (%)
Coorelates of empowerment
- (^) The respondents were classified as adequately empowered, moderately empowered and inadequately empowered based on their adequacy score.
- (^) It was observed whether share of inadequately empowered differed with change in caste status/ level of income/ land size class/ level of education
- (^) A pattern could be observed in case of level of education. Share of inadequately empowered was higher in case of respondents with lower level of education.
Pune Adequately empowered* Moderately empowered** Inadequately empowered*** Total 1 Marginal (^) 1.35 81.08 17.57 100 2 Small (^0) 75.00 25.00 100 3 Medium (^0) 60.00 40.00 100 4 Large (^) 14.29 71.43 14.29 100 Total (^) 1.67 76.67 21.66 100 Latur Adequately empowered* Moderately empowered** Inadequately empowered*** Total 1 Marginal (^) 6.38 80.85 12.77 100 2 Small (^) 3.92 74.51 21.57 100 3 Medium (^) 5.26 73.68 21.05 100 4 Large (^) 0.00 66.67 33.33 100 Total (^5) 76.67 18.33 100 Empowerment and Land Size Classification
Pune Income class Adequately empowered* Moderately empowered** Inadequately empowered*** Total 1 Low (^) 2.27 63.34 34.09 100 2 Moderate (^) 1.64 86.89 11.48 100 3 High (^0) 73.33 26.67 100 Total (^) 1.67 76.67 21.66 100 Latur Adequately empowered* Moderately empowered** Inadequately empowered*** Total 1 Low (^) 4.94 76.54 18.52 100 2 Moderate (^) 6.67 70 23.33 100 3 High 0 100 0 100 Total (^5) 76.67 18.33 100 Empowerment and Household Income
