Need special schemes for women farmers

The Survey has called for “feminisation” of agriculture saying that women play an increasingly important role in farming as more and more are migrating to urban areas in search of employment.

With women being predominant at all levels of agricultural value chain, there is a need to adopt gender specific interventions.

“Globally, there is empirical evidence that women have a decisive role in ensuring food security and preserving local agro-biodiversity,” the Survey said.

As per Census 2011, out of total female main workers, 55 per cent were agricultural labourers and 24 per cent were cultivators. However, only 12.8 per cent of the operational holdings were owned by women, which reflect the gender disparity in ownership of landholdings in agriculture, it said.

Welcoming the move, Kavitha Kuruganti of Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch, said “lack of recognition and identity itself had been a major problem.”

“However, it makes the mistake of assuming that operational holdings are equal to ownership of holdings, which is not the case,” she said. While it talks about entitlements of women farmers being key to driving productivity, women do not and are not able to access agriculture credit, crop insurance, marketing support, or disaster compensation on par with male farmers, Kuruganti said.

“Our analysis of gender shows only 10 per cent of outlays going to women farmers currently even though the government claims it 30 per cent,” she said.

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