As per the 10th Agriculture Census (2015-16), the percentage of female operational holdings in the country has increased from about 13% during 2010-11 to around 14% during 2015-16.
- Agriculture, contributing around 18% of the GDP (2019-20), is increasingly becoming a female activity.
- The agriculture sector employs 80% of all economically active women; they comprise 33% of the agricultural labour force and 48% of self-employed farmers.
- About 18% of the farm families in India, according to NSSO Reports are headed by women.
- According to the Economic Survey 2017-18, a rise in migration of men from rural to urban areas has resulted in the feminization of agriculture.
Female farmers are central to India’s agricultural economy: Yet, they are still invisible. They perform most of the ‘big jobs’ like sowing and harvesting, yet, their access to resources is less than that of men. To accelerate the pace of growth in India’s agricultural sector, there is a need to bridge this gap and give equal access to men and women (Munshi, 2017).
According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization; if access to productive resources for women is similar to that for men, they can increase yields on their farms by up to 30%. This can raise the total agricultural output of developing countries by 4% which means that it can reduce the number of hungry people by 12-17%, which is almost 100 million people (Munshi, 2017).
We must empower women farmers at the grassroots level by providing them with an established identity and knowledge on the technical and financial aspects of agriculture. Issues like the lack of physical accessibility of female farmers to various public spaces dominated by males, such as markets, is, therefore, an obstacle in the reform. There is an urgent need to make communication and information tools easily accessible to women (Unnati, et.al, 2012).
In this context, the GOI has taken various steps like an increased focus on women self-help group (SHG) to connect them to micro-credit through capacity-building activities and to provide information and ensuring their representation in different decision-making bodies, Recognizing the critical role of women in agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare has declared 15th October of every year as Women Farmer’s Day and at least 30% of the budget allocation has been earmarked for women beneficiaries in all ongoing schemes/programmes and development activities.
But the present situation demands more attention to this issue. The provision of credit without collateral under the microfinance initiative of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), Incentivization to produce tools and machinery suited to women’s needs, proper training to women farmers by KVKs of nearby districts, proper monitoring of the women-owned operational holdings (availed through separate female quota), women-centric strategies, and dedicated expenditure in Government flagship schemes such as the National Food Security Mission, Sub-mission on Seed and Planting Material and the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana and finally supporting & promoting women farmers’ cooperatives can be some areas Ministry can look into.
