An Analysis of Women’s Participation in Agriculture in Bihar (original) (raw)
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Role of Women in Agricultural Sector of Bihar
In the present scenario a proverb "without women we will go hungry" seems suitable. Women play prime role in traditional farming from manual farm activities to agroprocessing to homemaking (Majumdar and Shah 2017).
International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research
More than 60% of the population works in agriculture, which is the economic backbone of India. About half of the population is women, and in developing nations like India, their contributions are vital. Prior to improving the status of women, a nation cannot prosper. The majority of households in rural areas of the nation have no other source of income; 70% of these households are dependent on agriculture and sectors that are related to it. In rural India, women play a crucial role. Their effects can be seen throughout the entire agricultural sector, including crop growing, the production of fruits and vegetables, and other associated operations. Caste, education, annual income, housing type, type of land ownership, and interactions with extension workers were shown to be positively significant at the 1% level of agriculture involvement, whereas age was found to be adversely significant at the 5% level. The data showed that the top three restrictions on the farm women's experime...
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India is a developing country. In most of the developing countries agriculture is one of the main occupations, the Indian the scenario is more or less similar. As per the FAO report 2017-2018 agriculture and is allied source is the largest source of livelihood in India. In India about 70 percent of rural population is still depended on the agriculture among them a large number of populations is women. About 82 percent of the farmers are small or marginal farmer although India is the largest producer of Milk, Jute, pulses in the world and 2nd largest producer of rice, wheat, sugarcane, cotton and groundnuts. According to 68th round of National Sample Survey in 2013 indicate that in rural area 59 per cent men and 75 per cent women are engaged in agriculture. Women play an important role in agriculture but still they are lag behind in achieving job and wage in comparison to men. So, the present study has been attempting to make understand the gender inequality, socio economic condition...
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The rural economy is predominantly based on agriculture. Approximately 80 per cent Indian population lives in around five and half lakhs villages spread over the country and are depended mainly on agriculture. Agriculture is the backbone and base of the national economy. Agriculture is the lifeline of Indian economy and sustainability of agricultural growth has been the focused issue confronting the nation over the years. Indian agriculture could rise up to the challenges and has witnessed a gradual transformation from subsistence farming of early fifties to the present day intensive farming practices. Since ages, women continued to be the important stakeholders in farming actively in India. The nature and extent of women's involvement in agriculture, no doubt, vary greatly from region to region. Presently, they constitute one third of the agricultural labour force and about 48 per cent of self-employed farmers. Furthermore, management and involvement of Indian women in farming ...
AN STUDY ON ROLE OF WOMEN IN INDIAN AGRICULTURE
Dr. Madhu Rai
Gender, that is socially constructed relations between men and women, is an organizing element of existing farming systems and a determining factor of ongoing agricultural restructuring. Rural Women form the most important productive work force in the economy of majority of the developing nations including India. Rural women often manage complex households and pursue multiple livelihood strategies. India has a predominantly agrarian economy. 70% of women population is rural of those households, 60% engage in agriculture as their main source of income. Agriculture has always been India's most important economic sector. In this important sector women's are the backbone of the development of rural and national economies. The impact of liberalization and globalization on women is important not only because they represent almost half of the total population, but also because they face constraints, which make them less beneficial from the liberalization. Once different impacts are ascertained well designed policy responses may aid women in taking advantage of greater openness to agriculture. Nearly 78 percent of all economically active women are engaged in agriculture as compared to 63 per cent of men. Almost 50 percent of rural female workers are classified as agricultural laborers and 37% as cultivators. About 70 percent of farm work was performed by women. Agricultural extension efforts should help women improve food production while allowing them to shift more of their labor to export production. Similarly, changes in legal, financial, and educational systems must be undertaken in order to enhance women's social and economic contributions to rural development in the long term. It is observed that women play a significant and crucial role in agricultural development and allied fields. However, an attempt is made in this research article through available literature & studies to study the role of women in Indian agriculture.
In India, there are distinct male and female roles in the rural economy. Women and girls engage in a number of agro-oriented activities ranging from seedbed preparation, weeding, and horticulture and fruit cultivation to a series of post-harvest crop processing activities like cleaning and drying vegetable, fruits and nuts for domestic use and for market. A disproportionate number of those dependent on land are women: 58% of all male workers and 78% of all female workers, and 86% of all rural female workers are in agriculture. Female headed households range from 20% to 35% of rural households (widows, deserted women as well as women who manage farming when their men migrate). Although the time devoted by both women and men in agricultural activities may, in several communities and agricultural situations, be taken to be almost equal, women are dominant within the domestic tasks. Rural Indian women are extensively involved in agricultural activities, but the nature and extent of their involvement differs with variations in agro-production systems. This paper reaffirms that women make essential contributions to agriculture and rural enterprises. But there is much diversity in women's roles and over-generalization undermines policy relevance and planning. The context is important and policies must be based on sound data and gender analysis.
Constraints and opportunities for women in agriculture in India
2018
Woman plays a vital role in agricultural sector, as it is largely a household enterprise. They are the active participant in farm activities and processing farm products, in addition to their domestic and reproductive responsibilities. Women as farmers, agricultural labourer and entrepreneurs, constitute the backbone of India's agricultural and rural economy. But still their contributions are ignored since ages. Approximately Seventy percent of world poor are women and the major problems they face are peculiar social, cultural, educational, political and allied problems. Access to land, water, credit and other agricultural inputs, technology, new practices and extension services, education are the major constraints faced by rural women. Providing due recognition to women’s work as well as access to education, extension services, information, land, credit facilities, resources, modern technologies and other relevant agricultural innovations will entice many women to agricultural ...
Journal of Rural Studies, 2020
This paper examines the key socioeconomic and cultural-demographic factors that determine rural women's labour contributions in agriculture in India, both on family farms (either as cultivators or as family labour) and as agricultural wage labourer. Based on the analysis of primary data derived from a survey of 800 households from the two Indian states of Gujarat and West Bengal, it establishes that women's work in the farm sector cannot be homogenized. Women's work as additional hands in family farms differs from that as wage labourers which is casual in nature; their work also differs across different regions. In the commercialized, relatively more developed state of Gujarat, women's labour contributions are significantly different from West Bengal's less commercialized agrarian economy. The paper concludes that feminization of agriculture in India is distress-led where it has both class (defined with income in Gujarat) and caste (social groups) connotations in Gujarat, while mainly economic factors influence women's work in the farm sector in West Bengal.
Agro-Economist
Current paper focuses on sociodemographic situation of farm women and constraints they face in agricultural sector of Jammu district. Using multistage sampling technique three blocks were purposively selected from both irrigated and unirrigated areas. Two villages from each block and 10 households from each village were randomly selected and interviewed using pre-tested schedule. Results revealed that average age of farm women was between 30 and 50 years; 58.33% of farm women lacked literacy and only 22.5% had any form of intermediate education. Of the marginal farmers, 85.83 percent were women, and 57.50 percent of those women had 30 or more years of expertise in agriculture. Poor prices of the output and lack of timely financing availability were biggest obstacles for farm women in unirrigated and irrigated ecosystems, respectively.