The document discusses gender roles in agricultural labor in Pakistan. It defines gender as social relations between men and women, not determined by biology. Agricultural labor includes on-farm and off-farm work in crop and livestock production. The document notes that while women make up 52.5% of Pakistan's population, their literacy rate is just 16% compared to 35% for men. Women comprise 79.4% of rural workers versus 60.8% of men and play a major role in crop production, livestock, forestry, and fisheries. However, their contributions are underreported and policies and programs do not adequately support or recognize women's work in the agricultural sector.

2. Sohail Ilyas
University of Agriculture Faisalabad Pakistan
sohail17@hotmail.com

3. Gender As Agricultural Labour

4. What is Gender
• The relations between men and women, both
perceptual and material.
• Gender is not determined biologically, as a
result of sexual characteristics of either
women or men.

5. Definition of Agricultural labour
• Agricultural labor means human efforts in
agricultural products, including crops,
livestock, agro forestry, and aquaculture.
• On farm (e.g. agricultural production activities
such as planting, weeding, harvesting, milking
or fishing)
• Off farm (e.g. agro processing activities such
as cleaning, cutting, labeling or marketing)

6. Key Facts
• Pakistan's population is 47.5% male and 52.5%
female
• The literacy rate for women is 16%. This is less
than half the rate for men (35%)
• 79.4% of rural women are engaged in agriculture
as against 60.8% of rural men
• Women extensively participate in the production
of major crops; the intensity of their labour varies
by crop and specific crop management tasks

7. • Women have active, intensive involvement in
livestock production and forest product harvest
• Women's heavy work load - with dual responsibility
for farm and household production - is increasing as
agriculture is feminized
• Women's work is getting harder and more time-
consuming due to ecological degradation and
economic crisis

8. • Women contribute to household income through
farm and non-farm activities, particularly through
cottage industry
• Women's work as family labor is grossly under-
reported

9. Labor
• Force Survey revealed that only about 16% of
women aged 10 years and over were in the
labour force and in comparison, the men's
participation rate was 84%.
• On the contrary, the 1980 agricultural census
showed that women's participation rate in
agriculture was 73% and that women accounted
for 25% of all full-time and 75% of all part-time
workers in agricultural households.

10. Gender and Forestry
• Forest and woodland amounted to only 4.4%
of the land area in 1993 (UNDP, 1997)
• Many of wooded areas are severely depleted
as a result of overexploitation.
• Forestry production declined from 1.07 mill.
cubic metres in 1990/91 to 377,000 cu.m. in
1995/ 96 (EIU, 1997).

11. Fisheries
• Marine fisheries in Pakistan engage some
90,000 people.
• It has been found that traditionally, women
were involved in fishing business as
entrepreneurs.
• Rather they are involved in peeling shrimps,
weaving nets, making fish baskets, etc. as
labourers (GOP, 1995).

12. Livestock
• In Pakistan, livestock is an important
component of farming systems.
• It accounts for 26.4% of all the value of
agricultural production (Mumtaz, 1993).
• Livestock is raised for draft power, milk and
meat.
• Poultry, sheep and goats are very important to
rural women for they are often the only
source of income fully under their control

13. Policy and planning focus
• reform land policy to ensure gender equity as
well as class equality (in view of 40% of the
arable land owned by large land-owners)
• resolve both conceptual and methodological
problems and collect sex-disaggregated data
so as to generate a proper estimate of
women's economic participation

14. • improve all data bases on women which are
currently very inadequate
• improve policy and planning processes to be
participatory as well as gender-sensitive
• make the extension system more equitable to cover
female farmers and food crops grown by them
instead of merely focussing on male farmers and
commercial crops

15. • support policy shifts to encourage rural agro-based
small-scale industries, which have employment-
generating potential for the vast majority of rural
women

16. Programme focus
• recognize women's pivotal contribution to the
rural economy and include them in farming
systems improvement programmes
• conduct basic surveys to identify the varying
problems of rural women in different agro-
ecological and socio-economic conditions so
that appropriate intervention needs could be
identified

17. • launch massive basic and functional literacy
programmes for women so that they are able to
learn and apply improved agricultural technologies
• train female agriculture extension workers in order
to approach women farmers more easily
• provide rural women the knowledge of animal
diseases, vaccination and treatment of simple
ailments

18. • train rural women in preserving and processing of
various fruits, vegetables and livestock products

19. Labour laws and Agriculture workers