Elevating Indian Agriculture through Women Empowerment

Table of Contents

• Women's Participation in Indian Agriculture
• Role of Women in Indian Agriculture
• Challenges Faced by Women Farmers in the Indian Agricultural Sector
• Government Initiatives to Empower Women in Agriculture
  • Namo Drone Didi
  • Social Empowerment
  • Financial Empowerment
• Success Stories of Indian Women Farmers
• Women Farmers - A Future of Agriculture in India

Women's Participation in Indian Agriculture

Women play a vital role in Indian agriculture. Those who are actively involved in agriculture comprise two-thirds of the rural female workforce. Still, the majority are invisible women farmers who spend their entire lives as informal labourers.

Out of 89.5% of the labour force, about 80% are working to be agricultural workers in rural India. Among them, 50% of the labourers have only a primary level of education, and 19.2% of labourers are illiterate.

As of 2011, 25.50% of women are involved in India’s agricultural sector. According to NITI Aayog, the number of women engaged in agriculture was 749 out of 1000 in 2011-12.

Role of Women in Indian Agriculture

Agricultural development is the primary source of income for more than half of India’s population, and around 70% of people are engaged in agricultural activities. Women contribute in different ways to India’s agricultural development:

• Women work as labourers, cultivators and entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector.
• Livestock rearing, dairy farming, horticulture, agro/social forestry, and fishing are mostly managed by women only.
• Of the total food produced in India, about 60–80% is contributed by rural women.
• With the growing migration of men in urban areas, women are the caretakers of all the agricultural work.
• Almost all the manual operations in agriculture, such as milking, threshing, winnowing, etc., are done by women.

Challenges Faced by Women Farmers in the Indian Agricultural Sector

Though women play the most important role in Indian agriculture, they are still not recognized for their efforts. Women farmers do not have equal access to productive resources, which significantly limits their potential to enhance productivity. Let’s have a look at some of the challenges faced by women in the agricultural sector:

• According to Indian law, women have equal land rights. However, they still lack ownership rights directly in their names due to several reasons.
• Women do not have enough access to productive resources.
• Women tend to perform all un-mechanized agricultural tasks, which results in more burdens for them.
• Women lack knowledge regarding legal rights due to illiteracy.
• Women earn lower wages in the agricultural sector than men.
• Women have very little control over decision-making.

Government Initiatives to Empower Women in Agriculture

The government of India has come up with many schemes and initiatives to empower rural women in Indian agriculture. According to the Prime Minister’s vision of AatmaNirbhar Bharat, the government has prioritized the agenda of ‘Gender Mainstreaming in Agriculture’ to provide access to resources and schemes to rural women engaged in agriculture and allied sectors. Let’s have a look at some of the schemes and initiatives below:

Namo Drone Didi

“Namo Drone Didi” is a central sector scheme by the Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India, to give drones to Women Self-Help Groups (SHGs) under DAY-NRLM. The scheme has a total budget of INR 1261 Crores. It aims to provide drones to 14,500 selected Women SHGs from 2024-25 to 2025-2026 for rental services to farmers for agricultural purposes (application of liquid fertilizers and pesticides for the present).

Social Empowerment

Social empowerment of women in the agriculture sector can be encouraged by giving them security, safety, education, skill development and equal rights. Female infanticides should be prevented in the first priority. One of the most popular schemes of the Government of India is Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao. It provides a significant mass mobilization drive towards the elimination of gender discrimination and improved sex birth ratio. Under the Sukanya Samridhi Yojana, girls' rights to higher education are provided. Some other schemes implemented by the Ministry of Women and Child Development across the country are Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMY), Scheme for Adolescent Girls, Pradhan Mantri Mahila Shakti Kendra scheme, Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK), UJJAWALA scheme, Women Helpline (WH) etc. Women are also given 33% reservation in politics, which helps in women's empowerment in the country.

Financial Empowerment

The financial empowerment of rural women should be a priority in the development of women in the country. Through Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), financial inclusion and accessibility to banking have boosted rural women's confidence in their participation in economic activities. In the Jan Dhan campaign, women are given affordable banking/ savings and deposit accounts, remittances, credit, insurance, and pension-related financial services. These services ensure transparent transactions and timely access to financial services through direct benefits transfer (DBT) facilities provided under various Government of India schemes. In a total of 7 years, 43.04 Crore accounts have been opened in the country. As per the Ministry of Finance, 2021, 55.47% (23.87 crores) of women account holders, and 66.69% (28.70 crores) are Jan Dhan accounts in rural and semi-urban areas. Over 9 crore women have benefitted jointly from Mudra and Stand-Up India schemes. Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY), Stand-Up India Scheme and Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) are some other schemes that help in the financial development of rural women.

Success Stories of Indian Women Farmers

1. Smt. Bhavana Nikam (Nashik, Maharashtra) for Protected Cultivation and Farm Mechanization

Smt. Bhavana Nikam from Dabhadi Nashik, Maharashtra, is a role model for many women farmers in India. She is a graduate who started Agriculture as a vocation and practices different agricultural practices. In 2016, she built a 2000 sq. m. playhouse in her village of Dabhadi. She started cultivating capsicum, grapes, and vegetables. She has a farm pond, a playhouse, a shade net house, tractors, and rotavators, including all farm machinery. Her achievements include the production of vegetables through drip irrigation with polythene mulching, poultry farming, fish farming, etc. She was honoured at the celebration of Mahila Kisan Diwas organized by ATMA. Many farmers and youth visit her farm regularly to take a glimpse of her success, and many have followed in her footsteps. Some famous recognition include:

• 2019- Shivaji Maharaj Krushi Sanman Award.
• 2019- Best Woman Farmer Award (Krushiratn Award, Shetinishth Award, Rotary Club Adarsh Mahila Shetakari Award).
• 2021-Innovative Woman Farmer Anman Patra by Hon. Dadaji Bhause, Agriculture Minister.

2. Smt. Savita Devi (Banka, Jharkhand) for Integrated Dairy Farming Conversion of Barren Land to Dairy Farming

Smt. Savita Devi started her dairy farming journey in 2007 with one Holstein Friesian cow. After attending various training programmes at KVK Banka/ATMA and getting inspired, she chose scientific dairy farming. She started Urea treatment of straw, husk and rice bran and gave mineral mixture to animals. She also started round-the-year fodder production, such as hybrid Napier, Berseem, Cluster bean and cowpea. She started teaching other farmers the technique of silage preparation and the use of hydroponics. Today, she has 15 cows, and she is giving 150 litres of milk to Sudha Dairy and earning money from selling milk as well as compost. She has been recognized for her achievements at KVK Banka to other women farmers of India.

3. Smt. Kalpana Marathe (Sattari, Goa) for Entrepreneurship through Value Addition in Jackfruit for Livelihood

Smt. Kalpana Marathe is a 46-year-old woman with 7.6 ha of traditional integrated fruit orchards called ‘Kula Ghar’ in her native language. These orchards have 10 jackfruit trees. They used to get around 25-30 jackfruit per tree. Each fruit was around 8-10 kg. Due to the shortage market of jackfruit, she came in contact with KVK in 2018, and after their suggestion, she started home-scale production of jackfruit processing in the form of jackfruit chips and papad. Her firm is registered under the FDA for FSSAI license so that she can sell her products through Co-operative stores. She produced around 32 kg of jackfruit chips and 36 kg of jackfruit papad during the Jackfruit season of 2020. The rate of chips per packet was Rs100/- per packet of 200 grams of jackfruit chips and Rs.75/per packet of papad. She earned around Rs. 12,000 from chips and Rs. 9,000 from papad and jackfruit leather @ Rs 400/- per kg and got a net profit of INR 13,600. KVK recognized her efforts and presented her as a role model in front of other women farmers.

Women Farmers - A Future of Agriculture in India

Undoubtedly, women farmers are the major contributors to the agricultural sector in the country; from household chores to livestock, dairy and other agricultural activities, they have played a major role in the development of agriculture in India. Despite a huge involvement, women’s roles have not yet been recognized. Now, the government has started implementing some schemes and initiatives for better growth and eliminating the gender gap in this sector. Access to resources, technology, education, health facilities, ownership rights, and skill development will improve agricultural productivity and help build an empowered nation.