Women play a critical role in agricultural production in de­veloping countries including India. Particularly in low income countries in which agriculture accounts for an average 32% of the growth in GDP and in which an average 70% of the country’s poor live and work in rural areas, women make up a substantial majority of the agricultural workforce and produce most of the food that is consumed locally. Agricultural production in most of these countries provides the basis for most rural livelihoods. The large proportion of agricultural production that is attributable to women makes them important agents of economic de­velopment. The vast majority of food production that is at­tributable to women makes them the principal agents of food security and household welfare in rural areas.

1. My Land,
My Production Systems –
A Gender & Equity Perspective
Author: Rajesh Kapoor, CEO (Cohesion FoundationTrust)

2. ▪ Land Rights ofWomen
▪ CustomaryTenures and
Community Land Rights
Themes

3. Background
▪ Women play a critical role in agricultural production in developing countries
including India.
▪ Particularly in low income countries in which agriculture accounts for an average
32% of the growth in GDP and in which an average 70% of the country’s poor live
and work in rural areas, women make up a substantial majority of the
agricultural workforce and produce most of the food that is consumed locally.
▪ Agricultural production in most of these countries provides the basis for most rural
livelihoods.
▪ The large proportion of agricultural production that is attributable to women
makes them important agents of economic development.
▪ The vast majority of food production that is attributable to women makes them
the principal agents of food security and household welfare in rural areas.

4. Feminization of agriculture
▪ The present scenario
▪ There is increasing shift of men workforce from farm to non-farm sector
▪ There is systematic denial of recognition of women as farmers
▪ These two factors together make it more important to make
agriculture more feminine than before.
▪ Gender orientation of all stakeholders in the sector.

5. What needs to be done?
▪ Motivate women to assert their identity as Farmers – Mahila
Khedut, Mahila Kisan (Women Farmers).
▪ Facilitate processes to ensure their control over productive resources
and equal participation in decision making.
▪ Land in the name of women.
▪ Enhance the social status of women farmers and reduce vulnerability.
▪ Simultaneously address the other issues related to rights and
entitlements so as to bring a comprehensive change in the life and
livelihood of women.

6. National Agriculture Policy 2007
“For the Purpose of National Agriculture Policy, the term “ Farmer” will refer
to a person actively engaged in the economic and/or livelihood activity of
growing crops and producing other primary agricultural commodities and
will include all agricultural operational holders, cultivators, agricultural
labourers, sharecroppers, tenants, poultry, and livestock rearers, fishers,
beekeepers, gardeners, pastoralists, noncorporate planters and planting
labourers, as well as persons engaged in various farming related
occupations such as sericulture, vermiculture, and agro-forestry.”

7. Cohesion’s perspective on women as farmers
▪ The institution has plans to
develop control over resources for
women farmers. Key areas of
strengthening the same would be
▪ Land
▪ Seeds
▪ Fertilisers
▪ Credit/ Capital
▪ Women’s access to government
schemes

8. Land
▪ Promotion of processes for taking land from big farmers
▪ on share cropping
▪ on lease
▪ or as tenant farmers
▪ Demanding state and forest land from Panchayat/ Government for
collective farming especially for PVTGs
▪ Promoting processes to ensure Joint Ownership of land
▪ Inheritance of land to women
▪ Promoting use of drudgery reduction tools–Plough, Bullock,Tractors,
threshers, sickle, sprinkler, pumps etc.
▪ Promoting Library for sharing of tools and equipment

9. Women using Drudgery ReductionTools

10. Seeds
▪ Promoting local seeds production
▪ Conservation of seeds for self use and
sale in the market.
Promoting organic farming
▪ Vermi-composting on individual and leased
farm lands
▪ Promoting NADEP and bio fertilisers
▪ Sale of the organic fertilizers to the women’s
collective members, other farmers or in the
market

11. Credit/ Capital
▪ Generating/saving own capital through
▪ Sale of farm produce/ seeds/ fertlisers etc
▪ Hiring farm equipment
▪ Promotion of economic activities like oil mill for local seed, flour
mills, promoting micro-enterprises (Agri-Based and Allied)
▪ Credit from banks through promoting Joint Liability Groups for men
and women equally, Subsidized Loans to women farmers
▪ Sensitising bank officials to issue Kisan credit Card on the name of
women and also to landless
▪ Credit based on women’s own identity as farmer

12. Integration of larger definition of farmers
▪ So far definition limited to the land owning farmers, but recent
expansion of the definition by the national agriculture policy includes
all people involved directly and indirectly with farming, allied
livelihood like dairy, artisans, forest user groups and people involved
in micro enterprise related to agriculture and other natural resources.
▪ Therefore while working with agriculture the intervention and
outreach needs to be expanded to the groups beyond land owners
and to integrate their requirements in agricultural projects.
▪ Similarly there can be alternatives to accommodate landless and
forest users to agriculture through their participation in collective
farming, promoting input enterprises viz. bio-fertilizer preparation
with locally available resources and value addition services.

13. What we are doing?
Woman as
Woman
Women
asTribal
Women
as
Farmer

14. Contd..
Strengthened
Women
Farmers
Protecting
Food &
Nutrition
Promoting
Collective
Action
Cultivating
Women’s
Profit

15. A new outlook
▪ Identify and implementTribal Customary laws
▪ Need for organisations working with Tribal
Women Farmers to understand traditional land
reforms ofTribal.
▪ Focus on CFRs and joint ownership.
▪ Awareness of the tribal community on their
rights under PESA act and the ways to exercise
the same.
▪ In the initial years following rights would be
focused
▪ Control over natural resources;
▪ Control over selection of beneficiaries;
▪ Right to make village development plan;
▪ Control over village level state functions
and functionaries and dispute resolution.

16. Contd..
▪ FRA is totally a dream concept for the
community as after 2010 the claims
are being stopped in Gujarat. All the
scheduled V area, community has
specific rights but never accessed it.
▪ The FRCs (forest rights committees)
of villages is just on paper.
Strengthening of these committees
is needed.
▪ Equally important is to identify
traditional tribal land laws, and tribal
activists together with other Civil
Society organizations should join
hands together.
▪ Larger networks working on Tribal
rights, Women’s land rights like
Working Group of Women’s Land
Ownership (WGWLO), Mahila Kisaan
Adhikar Manch (Makaam) etc should
take lead role and work towards the
issue. Organisations should join
hands with larger networks.