Do women like to farm? Evidence of growing burdens of farming on women in rural India

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the findings of an extensive questionnaire-based survey conducted in two Indian states of West Bengal and Gujarat, this paper investigates whether the concentration of women's labour contributions to agriculture has improved their autonomy in decision-making. It shows that women's labour burdens have increased without associated benefits, and raises the question of the invisibility of the ‘preparatory work' that women do on and off the farm to support agriculture. The findings lead to the conclusion that for farming in India to thrive and ensure fulfilling lives for women farmers, the policymakers need to address rural women’s discontent.

KEYWORDS:

• Women in agriculture
• preparatory work
• decision-making
• control over incomes
• rural India

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Australian Research Council (DP 140101682) and the Indian Council of Social Science Research for funding the research project titled ‘Farmers of the Future: Challenges of a Feminized Agriculture in India’. The authors express their gratitude to Professor Amita Shah for her constructive comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Most urban jobs that rural male migrants find are insecure and poorly paid (Shah and Harriss-White 2011), causing many to shuttle between agriculture and non-agricultural informal employment (Binswanger-Mkhize 2013).

2 During 2017–18 the per capita income was Rs 131,853 (∼USD 1,803) for Gujarat and Rs 65,978 (∼USD 902) for West Bengal; the national average during this time was Rs 86,668 (∼1,185) (GOI 2019).

3 The total area under foodgrain constituted around 65% of the gross cropped area (GCA) in West Bengal compared to 25% in Gujarat in 2018. Major cash crops of Gujarat – cotton, groundnut, castor, and tobacco – together constituted around 40% of the total area in 2018. Major cash crops of West Bengal – jute, tea, sugarcane, and tobacco – collectively constituted only about 12% of area in 2017 (GOG 2019; GOWB 2018).

4 This is evident from a number of factors. The marketed surplus of foodgrains in Gujarat was 97% in 2015 compared to 68% in West Bengal. Among oilseeds, the marketed surplus of groundnut in Gujarat was 95% as against 77% in West Bengal of mustard, the state’s major oilseed (GOI 2019). The number of markets, an indicator of infrastructural development, show that the number of principal regulated markets in Gujarat (199) was greater than West Bengal (42). However, the submarket yards are quite high in West Bengal (415) compared to Gujarat (400).

5 Authors’ calculation based on unit level data from the NSS Quinquennial survey, 68th Round (GOI 2014) and Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS 2019).

6 Of the total number of households, 80% in Gujarat and 71% in West Bengal owned land.

7 OBC are defined as socially and educationally backward classes who are economically relatively better compared to the SCs and STs. While SCs, also known as Dalits, face discrimination and social exclusion, and remain at the very bottom of the caste system, STs are officially the historically disadvantaged indigenous people in India.

8 The gap between farm and non-farm income of 1:3 in the mid-1980s widened to 1:4.08 by the mid-1990s and to 1:3.12 in 2011–12 (Chand 2017).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Research Council [grant number DP 140101682]; Indian Council of Social Science Research.

Notes on contributors

Itishree Pattnaik

Itishree Pattnaik is an Assistant Professor at the Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Ahmedabad, India. Itishree received her PhD from the University of Hyderabad, India on comparative agricultural performance. Her research interests include agriculture, gender and sustainable development, gender and food security, and the rural non-farm sector. She has published several journal articles and book chapters on these topics, focussing on women and gender in Indian agriculture and food security. Itishree is one of the lead investigators in the project ‘Farmers of Future: Challenges of Feminised Agriculture in India’, jointly funded by the Australian Research Council and the Indian Council of Social Science Research, which funded the survey reported in this article.

Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt

Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt is a Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University. Kuntala researches the interface of gender, the environment and natural resource management in India, with focus on the precarious and gendered livelihoods in environmental resource-dependent communities in the transient chars (river islands), in small-holder agriculture, and in the mineral-rich tracts. Kuntala’s publications include Between the Plough and the Pick (edited, ANU Press, 2018); The Coal Nation: Histories, Politics and Ecologies of Coal in India (edited, Ashgate, 2014); Dancing with the River: People and Lives on the Chars in South Asia (co-authored, Yale University Press, 2013); Gendering the Field: Towards Sustainable Livelihoods for Mining Communities (edited, ANU Press, 2011); Water First: Issues and Challenges for Nations and Communities in South Asia (co-edited, Sage, 2008); Women Miners in Developing Countries: Pit Women and Others (co-edited, Ashgate, 2006). More on Kuntala’s work can be gleaned from her staffpage: https://crawford.anu.edu.au/people/academic/kuntala-lahiri-dutt.