Women role In Agriculture A Lecture By Mr Allah Dad Khan Agriculture Expert KPK at Peshawar Former DG Agri Extension KPK Province and Visiting Professor AUP PeshawarPeshawar

3. Women Role in World
• About 70% of the
agricultural workers,
• 80% of food producers
and
• 15% of those who
process basic food, are
women ..

4. Pakistan Agriculture
About 25% of Pakistan's
total land area is under
cultivation and is watered by
one of the largest irrigation
systems in the world.
Pakistan irrigates three
times more acres than
Russia. Agriculture accounts
for about 21% of GDP and
employs about 45%of the
labor force.

5. Women In Agriculture
1.Women are the
backbone of the rural and
national economies. They
comprise 41% of the
world’s agricultural labour
force, which rises to 78%
in some countries

6. Women In Agriculture
2.Rural women play a vital
role in agricultural sector
production by working
with full passion in
production of crops
correctly from the soil
preparation till harvesting
and food protection
activities.

7. Women In Agriculture
3.In rural areas of
Pakistan, women
contribute in the entire
operations interrelated to
crop production such as
sowing, rearing,
transplanting, and
harvesting

8. Women In Agriculture
4. Rural women in
Pakistan carry out these
farm duties in addition to
their common domestic
chores of cooking and
maintaining the house,
besides looking after the
entire household up-
keeping and maintenance

9. Women In Agriculture
5. Females overshadow
men in a lot of spheres of
agricultural
responsibilities in
expressions of their
productive participation
but usually their efforts go
unrecognized at national
level

10. Women In Agriculture
6. Women’s livelihood
strategies and their means
of food security are
diverse and difficult, from
cleaning-up seed, to
cultivating field crops, to
house gardening and
forests and waste lands.

11. Women In Agriculture
7.It is the women who make
the feed, collect fodder, clean
animals and their sheds, make
dung cakes, collect manure for
organic fertilizers, pump milk,
process. animal products and
to market them
They also play a crucial role in
rural poultry farming, where
they apply their own methods
of rearing and breeding

12. Major
Constraints
faced by
Women in
Agriculture

13. 1.Poor Health and Malnutrition
1. In rural areas where
women’s status is grossly
neglected, health is on the
top. She often does
notreceive proper
nutritive diet in her life
span which causes her low
health status and prone to
diseases.
2. When she becomes
economic worker in
agriculture, it negatively
affects her productivity
that is automatically low.

14. 2.Safety:
1. Women cannot travel openly and
freely due to prevailing law and
order
2. situation. Women are not safe
while travelling at night or in the
daytime when there were few
3. people around. Sometime the hold-
ups occur while coming back from
the market. They do
4. not have access to bank accounts
and have to carry cash which makes
them more vulnerable.
5. This hampers their effective
participation in education, training
and even marketing of their
6. produce.

15. 4.Discriminative Attitudes by Males
towards Women
Men have a sense of
1. superiority and they sometimes
treat women as nobody. Men get
support from customs and
2. traditions that discriminate
women particularly in rural areas
of Pakistan. Men often perceive
3. the empowerment of women as
a threat. Boys are given
preference over girls when there
is
4. not enough money to pay school
fees of all the children and such
decisions are not based on
5. the merit

16. 5. Domestic violence
Domestic Violence: There
is an issue of domestic
violence as well though
people donot talk openly
about it or do anything to
stop it. This is happening
over the time and most of
the people have accepted
it.

17. 6. Access to training
Access to the training:
There are limited
agricultural extension
services and usually
farmers who are living
closer to big cities were
having a greater contact
with service provider.

18. 7.Lack or Complete Absence of Education
• Rural female in Pakistan are
mostly illiterate because of
lack of access to
educational facilities,
conservative cultural codes
and early marriages which
deprives them to attain
basic education. Therefore
they relies mainly upon
their informal learning,
traditional knowledge most
of which is outdated and
their own experience from
agricultural activities

19. 9.Ignorance for Using Latest Means of
Agriculture
Agency for International
Development (1982)
criticized the fact that,
whatsoever has been taught
by extension workers upon
the use of latest technology
and other means of
productivity enhancement.
They mainly access to men
farmers resultantly women
are neglected or they get
secondary knowledge of it.

20. 10.Lack of Land Ownership and Access to Credit
Facilities
Male members of the
society which deprives
women from land
ownership. She works on
the land owned by her
father, husband or son.
This triggers the problem
of access to credit
facilities offered to those
only who hold ownership
rights to lands.

21. 11.Lack of Segregated Economic Policy &
Reforms
Pakistani traditional
society in particular define
gender role that has been
historically specified in
lack of access to
productive resources
because of which women
and men are not
proportionately reflected
in various agricultural
sectors.

22. 12.Natural Environment
As natural environment is
unpredictable and women
farmers coupled with
illiteracy are unable to
foresee weather trends so
any unexpected change
badly affect their work

23. 13.Migration
Accelerated rated of males
migration to urban areas in
search of jobs and other
earning opportunities. This
trend affected rural families
in terms of increased out-
migration by men and by
leaving behind all the family
responsibilities upon
women, particularly the
farm work

24. 14.Replacement of Female by
Technology
The introduction of latest
technology to agriculture
for productivity and
efficiency is indispensible
nowadays but somehow it
produces hurdles for
female farmers rather
than facilitating them.

25. 15.Low Skill and Low Paid Activities
In fact woman is primarily
responsible for cultivating
and harvesting food crops
needed by household
livelihood but her efforts
Are not recognized

26. Way
Forward

27. Way Forward
1. Government of
Pakistan should design
an integrative system
as to support women
in all agriculture
related sectors e.g.
financial services, land
reforms, tax reforms
etc.

28. Way Forward
2.In order to provide a
sound basis for policy
makers, initiatives should
be taken to accurately
record and reflect timely
data particularly gender-
segregated data about
female contribution in
agriculture.

29. Way Forward
3.Make the extension
system improved to cover
female farmer’s needs
where arrangements
should be made to teach
them about the use of
technological equipments
in her farming practices to
bring efficiency with
technology.

30. Way Forward
4.Policy reforms should be
introduced to encourage
rural agro-based small-
scale industries, which
would help in diversifying
agricultural resources and
will generate employment
for the rural women.

31. Way Forward
5. Women should be
made familiar with the
methods of food
processing and food
preservation of various
fruits, vegetables and
livestock products, which
would serve as a value
addition to economic
productivity.

32. 6.Support from Men:
1. Attitudinal and
behavioral change
particularly in men is
very important in
improving the plight of
the women in Pakistan.
2. There are certain social
taboos which are
hampering the access to
education and training.
Women should get
equal opportunity of
education just like men.

33. 7. Education and Training for Women:
1. By imparting post harvest
management skills such as
processing, packing and
quality control will help
them in establishing juice,
jam and pickle industries
at local level.
2. It will promote local
entrepreneurships. It is
recommended that
agriculture training for
women be offered on
farms and in local villages.

34. 8.Marketing Training:
1. Rural women generally lack
training, skills and opportunities
in this area.
2. There is need to involve
urbanite women in this area so
that they could also play an
effective role in this area as
well.
3. It is recommended that
developmental programmes
should be launched to engage
urban women with rural women
in order to develop market skills
in rural women so that they
could get good price for their
produce

35. 9.Enhanced Role of Extension Workers
1. They can play a positive role
in improving women
participation in agriculture
industry in Pakistan by
providing training to women
at their door step.
2. There are farm field schools
for men in some areas of the
Punjab so there is need to
replicate this experiment for
women as well.
3. It is recommended to
develop a training
programme for female
agriculture extension
workers

36. 10.Women empowerment techniques:
1. Women should be
encouraged to have
economic
independence.
2. The government should
investigate
opportunities for
developing agricultural
entrepreneurial
activities with
concomitant training for
women.