Rapporteur's Report on Women in Agriculture and Rural Economy

Ind. Jn. ofAgri. Econ. Vol. 54, No. 3, July-Sept. 1999 RAPPORTEURS'REPORTS Rapporteur's Report on Women in Agriculture and Rural Economy Rapporteur: J.V. Meenakshi* INTRODUCTION The last few decades have seen a transformation of the agricultural sector, with increasing numbers of women joining the agricultural workforce. As documented by Indira Hirway in her keynote paper on this subject, workforce participation rates have increased for women more than for men, and more for women in rural areas - especially in cultivation - than in urban areas. It is important to understand the factors underlying these changes and their possible impact on women's status so as to facilitate the design and implementation of meaningful policies. Rich insights into these processes are provided by primary studies, which form the bulk of the 34 papers accepted in summary form for discussion. This report reviews the principal findings of the papers; given the diversity of material, it is not possible to cover all papers. The findings may be categorised under three broad areas: studies relating to labour use in agriculture and its determinants(Section II); those documenting the degree to which women are empowered to make decisions (Section III); and those that evaluate the extent to which government programmes aimed at improving the economic lot of women succeed in doing so (Section IV). Finally, Section V sets out some issues for discussion. II WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN AGRICULTURE It is useful to begin by reiterating the substantial contribution of women to crop production activities, dairying and other rural enterprises. Thus, for example, in Assam female workforce participation rate in crop production is, at 42 per cent, almost as high as the male participation rate of 47 per cent (Anuva Saikia). In Maharashtra (K.S. Birari et al.), the labour contribution of women to crop production is 62 per cent, most of which is hired female labour. In Uttar Pradesh (Ajit Kumar Singh and Pratap Singh Garia), half of agricultural workers are women. This pattern would appear to be true of tribal areas of Himachal Pradesh as well (S.K. Chauhan; R.K. Sharma et cd.), where women account for approximately 60 per cent of agricultural labour. However, crop production activities account for a relatively small portion of household income here, the main source of income being cattle rearing. * Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, Delhi-110 007. RAPPORTEUR'S REPORT ON WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY 443 A few papers also document changes in the employment of women overtime.In Rajasthan, K.A. Varghese et al. report that female participation rates in agriculture increased much more than they did for males,especially in irrigated areas. This is consistent with the all-India picture presented by Hirway. Indeed,the growth rate in male agricultural workers was lower than the increase in population of men. The design of effective policy interventions must be predicated on an appreciation of the causes of the observed changes in female employment. While the list of potential determinants is very large, I focus only on those that are highlighted in the papers accepted for discussion. At least four stylized facts emerge from these papers: 1. Labour-Using Technical Change To the extent that aggregate labour demand per hectare has increased as a result of technological change and the consequent increase in cropping intensity, women have also benefited, even if their labour contributions relative to that of men remain unchanged. In Farrukkhabad, Uttar Pradesh, Babu Singh et al. report that between 1993-94 and 1998-99 an increase in cropping intensity, expansion of maize acreage, and the introduction of new crops were primarily responsible for increased employment opportunities for women. This is true not just of the crop sector, but the dairy sector as well. For example, in Bihar technical change in milk production resulted in higher female employment, as overall number of days per animal per year is higher under new milk production technology (Anjani Kumar et al.). In addition, there is some evidence that within specific crops, technical change has been biased toward the use offemale labour. R. Rajesh and S. Kombairaju classify farms in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu into low-, medium-, and high-technology adopters, and note that hired female labour use increases with technology adoption. This would appear to be particularly true in the case of cotton. Similarly, in an analysis of Integrated Pest Man- agement Technology (IPM)in the Nanded district of Maharashtra, Sant Kumar reports that female labour requirements are almost double under IPM as compared to the non-IPM case. This is largely due to the enhanced picking and harvesting requirements associated with a higher IPM yield. 2. Withdrawal of Menfrom Farm Activities At the all-India level, Indira Hirway notes that "rural women workers are the least diversified component of the labour force in the country." Moreover, over time "it is only rural female workers who are experiencing negative occupational diversification....when all other components of the labour force are experiencing larger diversification!" This is corroborated by primary studies as well. Evidence from Uttarakhand is indicative of out-migration of men (Singh and Garia). Diversification into off-farm activities is yet another factor; since the nature of the diversification is not counter-seasonal, this has meant that men have withdrawn from agricultural activities, leaving women to take up theislack. Thus P.S. Dahiya et al. report that in Himachal Pradesh, men have diversified into the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy. Further, Varghese et al. and note that due to low female literacy and reasons of status, non-farm employment opportunities are not as readily available to women in Rajasthan. 444 INDIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 3. Crop/Operation Specificity and Changes in Cropping Pattern Many studies document the crop- and operation-specificity of labour contributions by women. In Punjab,for example,Inder Sain and Meenu Aggarwal note that women contribute only 13 per cent to the total labour use in wheat production, but 38 per cent to potato, and 60 per cent to vegetable cultivation. Wheat also exhibits lower participation by women in Gujarat (31 per cent), as compared to their participation in the cultivation of groundnut, where women contribute 46 per cent of all labour requirements (R.L. Shiyani and S.B. Vekariya). In the hills of Uttar Pradesh (R.S. Tripathi), women work for almost 230 days per hectare on crop production, while their male counterparts work only for 59 days. In this region, labour utilisation is the highest for potatoes in which women spend almost 446 days per hectare, followed by paddy. Participation by women tends to be specific to certain operations, for example, in the Junagadh district of Gujarat the major share of weeding and harvesting in both groundnut and wheat crops tends to be done by women(Shiyani and Vekariya). In Rajasthan(Varghese et al.), women dominate interculture and harvesting operations for wheat. Similar operation-specificity offemale employment is also noticed in Madhya Pradesh(P.K. Mishra et al.) and in Uttar Pradesh (R.K. Singh et al.). A major implication of these specificities is that wherever cropping patterns have changed in favour of crops that demand greater participation by women, or associated cultivation practices have favoured women,labour force participation rates would also go up. It should be noted here that since most of the studies deal with a single cross-section, the impact of such changes can only be inferred; it is not documented. Furthermore, where wage rates for women are reported to be below those of men, much of the difference may well be due to these operation specificities. 4. Is there a Backward-Bending Supply Curvefor Female Agricultural Labour? There also appears to be a contradictory force operating on the employment of women in agriculture. This arises from a tendency for women to withdraw from the labour force with increasing socio-economic status as indicated by size of land holding, and even caste. The inverse relationship between participation of women (particularly of family labour) and the size of land holding has been reported in studies from all parts of the country. For example, in the relatively less developed Darbhanga district of Bihar (R.K.P. Singh et al.), 85 per cent of all landless women worked;the correpsonding figure for large farm households was a mere 2 per cent. Similar evidence is reported from Tamil Nadu (Rajesh and Kombairaju); Assam (Saikia); Uttar Pradesh (R.K. Singh et al.); tribal Himachal Pradesh (Sharma et al.); Haryana (V.K. Singh et al.); Madhya Pradesh (P.K. Mishra et al.); and Punjab (B ant Singh et al.). RAPPORTEUR'S REPORT ON WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY 445 III EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN Does their increasing presence in the rural workforce imply that women have an equal role as compared to men in making decisions? The overwhelming evidence indicates that the answer is no. In Tamil Nadu, T. Alagumani proposes a scoring technique wherein decisions taken solely by. the respondent are given a score of 3, those taken jointly with others, a score of 2 and those taken by others without consulting the respondent, a score of 1. The author finds that the involvement of women in decisions relating to household consumption is the greatest, followed by those relating to crop production, and finally it is the least in decisions relating to investment. Further, the involvement of women in production decisions is greater in areas of assured irrigation than in areas that are rainfed. In Uttarakhand, Singh and Garia report that overall, less than one-third of women had the power to spend the family income.

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