AEX 218  - DIMENSIONS OF  AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION

Dr.J.Meenambigai

Assistant Professor

UNIT – V

GENDER DIMENSIONS IN AGRICULTURE

Gender

Gender refers to the socially constructed roles and responsibilities of men and women, in a given culture or location. These roles are influenced by perceptions and expectations arising from cultural, political, environmental, economic, social, and religious factors, as well as custom, law, class, ethnicity, and individual or institutional bias. Gender attitudes and behaviors are learned and can be changed.

Gender Mainstreaming

Gender mainstreaming is .the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making womens as well as mens concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality.

Gender and Agricultural Development

Agriculture involves both self-employment and wage employment and accordingly requires precise information about who does what? In fact, the land holding of 75% of the farming community being small, the number of landless labourers has swelled up over time by working on others farm. The situation thus demands an understanding of activity performance of men and women and the children girls and boys- whose lives are fundamentally structured in different ways. Their living pattern, working pattern, interaction style and sharing of scientific information differ within the Socio-economic groups. Similarly, a gender-based division of labour is universal, but culture and community diversities cause differentiation. Gender, therefore, has to be recognized as the social characteristic that cuts across caste, class, occupation, age and ethnicity. It is gender that differentiates the roles, responsibilities, resources, constraints and opportunities of women and men in agriculture for which precise gender information is the need of the day.

Building gender into agricultural development will lead to

·         Building inherent strength of women and men to mutually learn

·         Overcoming gender based prejudices

·         Articulating gender perspectives in development activities

Feminization of Agriculture

In many parts of the world today, there is an increasing trend towards what has been termed as feminization of agriculture. As mens participation in agriculture declines, the role of women in agricultural production becomes ever more dominant. In India, the major cause for this phenomenon is the migration of men from rural areas to towns and cities, in their own countries or abroad, in search of paid employment. In Africa, for example, the male population in rural areas is falling rapidly, while the female population remains relatively stable. In Malawi, the rural male population has dropped by 21.8 percent between 1970 and 1990. During the same 20-year period, the rural female population declined by only 5.4 percent.

This trend has resulted in an increase in the proportion of households headed by women. Approximately one-third of all rural households in sub-Saharan Africa are now headed by women and in India the percentage of Women-headed Households account for 10.4 percent. Studies have shown that women heads of household tend to be younger and less educated than their male counterparts. They also generally have less land to work and even less capital and extra farm labour to work with. With a shortage of labour and capital, women heads of household are often forced to make adjustments to cropping patterns and farming systems. These adjustments have resulted in decreases in production and, in some cases, shifts towards less nutritious crops. Not surprisingly, these households often suffer from increased malnutrition and food insecurity.

Role of women in agriculture

            Women in agricultural families perform many farm- related activities, both within and outside the household, in most parts of the country. They constitute a large part of the total work force in agriculture. Although the pattern of division of labour between men and women varies greatly from region, women are involved most of the operations in agriculture, including subsidiary enterprises like dairy, poultry, beekeeping, mushroom cultivation, sericulture, fish culture, social forestry, etc. (Bajwa, 1983; Prasad and Chandra, 1991).

            So far as crop husbandry is concerned, women participate in almost all activities, right from preparatory tillage to harvest, and even in post – harvest tasks like processing, storage, and marketing. There is a general taboo on women engaging in ploughing, but in exceptional circumstances even ploughing is done by them.

            Traditionally, seed cleaning, seed grading, sowing, dibbling, planting, transplanting, weeding, gap filling, interculturing, harvesting, threshing, shelling, hulling, winnowing, feeding cattle, and looking after milch animals and poultry birds are the main jobs for women. It may, however, be mentioned that regardless of the economic status, higher caste women usually avoid doing field work. Their activities are confined within and at best around the homestead. By and large, the main role of women in high income group is supervisory.

Gender Issues in Agriculture

Over-burden of Work

Rural women are much more over-burdened than men owing to their multiple occupations. Researches on women in agriculture have revealed that on an average women work for 15-16 hours a day. Studies further point out that farm activities, which are time and labour intensive, monotonous, repetitive and more drudgery prone, are generally performed by women. Since these operations are done manually, they cause considerable physical and mental fatigue and health problems.

Impact of Technology

Some of the new agricultural technologies are reported to have affected farmwomen adversely. Green revolution had led to the dispossession of small women land-holders, who have been forced to join the ranks of wage earners. Wherever the new agricultural technology led to multiple cropping, the work load of women has increased. While a number of tasks performed by males have been mechanized, the tasks usually allotted to women continue to be manual and suffer from drudgery. Even where improved techniques have been found for the womens activities, there is not sufficient access to training in such techniques.

Facilities and Support Services

There is rigidity for female labourers in terms of working hours, place and duration of work. Because of this, children are neglected and health of women is also adversely affected. Lack of adequate support services like child care services-creche, balwadi, adequate maternity and health care- lack of safe drinking water etc. further add to their problems.

Development Bias

Despite the contribution of women in the production process, persistent bias of development planners in treating them primarily as consumers of social services rather than producers, kept them away from the development programmes in agriculture and allied sectors. Women suffer from a statistical purdah as a result of which their contribution is not recognized. They often have heavier workloads than men and bear virtually sole responsibility for family welfare and household management. However, they have limited control over productive resources. Gender discrimination, rooted in law and custom, is pervasive and impedes socio-economic development.

Women development Programmes

Rashtriya Mahila Kosh

The Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK) or the National Credit Fund for Women was set up as a Registered Society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 sponsored by the Department of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India on 30th March, 1993. It was given a one time corpus fund of Rs.31.00 crore.

Objectives

The main objectives of RMK is to facilitate credit support or micro-finance to poor women to start income generating activities such as dairy, agriculture, shop-keeping, vending, handicrafts etc. RMK mainly channelises its support through non-government organizations/ voluntary agencies; women’s development corporations; cooperative societies; state government agencies like DRDA; SHGs formed under Swayamsiddha/Swa-Shakti and non-profit making companies registered under section 25 of Companies Act,1956.

Administrative set-up

The RMK is administered by a Governing Board of 16 Members consisting of senior officers of Central and State Governments, specialists and representatives of organisations active in the field of micro-credit to women.

 For assisting eligible organizations, the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh is operating the following loan Schemes:

(1) Main Loan Scheme

For availing loan under this Scheme the organization should satisfy the following eligibility criteria:-

1.      The organisation applying for loan under this scheme should have broad based objectives, serving the social and economic needs of the poor women. It must not work for profit.

2.      The organisation should have necessary professional competence, basic financial management capability and organizational skills to implement the lending programme.

3.      The office bearers of the organization should not be elected representatives of any political party.

4.      The organisation should have proper system of maintaining accounts, which should be audited and published every year and there should not have been any serious irregularities.

5.      The organisation should be registered for more than 3 years on the date of application to RMK.

6.      The organisation should have experience in thrift and credit management for three years, or more.

7.      The application should clearly reflect the source of funds utilised earlier for credit.

8.      Recoveries for the loans given to its members earlier should be at least 90%.

9.      There should be proper and specific clause/ provision in the Byelaws/ Memorandum of Association of the Organisation having power to borrow or raise loans from any outside agency.

10.  There should be appropriate reflection in the Organisation’s audited accounts and balance sheet in respect of its experience in providing credit, recoveries etc. Audited accounts should reflect sound financial management / health and there should be no observation of a serious nature by the auditors.

11.  There should be adequate infrastructure and staff to implement the micro credit programme.

(2) Loan Promotion Scheme

Eligibility criteria under the scheme will be same as under Main Loan Scheme (MLS) except that organizations with even six months of experience in micro credit are eligible to avail loans under the scheme. Loans are repayable within 36 months, at an interest rate of 8% per annum.

(3) Revolving Fund Scheme

In order to avail loan facility under this Scheme, the organization should have taken at least two loans under the Main Loan Scheme and repaid the first loan in full and in time. The organization should have at least five years of experience in the field of thrift and micro credit with not less than 50 stable SHGs under its aegis. Other eligibility criteria are the same as under Main Loan Scheme except that the limit for the loan amount could be up to Rs. 500 lakhs.

(4) Gold Credit Card Scheme

Loan under this Scheme enables an NGO (mostly large and medium) to revolve the amount taken from RMK among its members for a duration of three years, subject to the condition that they repay their interest on a quarterly basis in time. The performance of borrowers will be subject to annual review on the basis of a Gold Credit Pass Book issued for the purpose. Other eligibility criteria for the loan are the same as under the Main Loan Scheme.

(5) Franchise

This Scheme enables an NGO to avail a loan directly from a franchisee without approaching the RMK office in Delhi. NGO having availed itself of a minimum loan of Rs. 2.00 crores under micro credit scheme of RMK/ SIDBI/NABARD/Commercial Banks/Other financial institutions are eligible for loan of above Rs. 1 crore under the Franchisee Scheme and NGOs having experience of up to Rs. 1 crore are eligible for a maximum of Rs. 1 crore loan under this scheme. Rate of interest charged on the loan to a franchisee is 5 per cent per annum subject to the maximum loan limit under this scheme is Rs. 500 lakhs. Other eligibility conditions are the same as under the Main Loan Scheme.

(6) Capacity Building Grant

This is an assistance extended by RMK to partnership organizations for development of infrastructure, such as purchase of computer package for software improvement etc. The organization should meet 25 per cent of the proposed cost from its own funds for which RMK will provide grant to the extent of 10% of the loan disbursed.

(7) Housing Loan

This scheme has been designed with a view to provide shelter to SHGs through partner NGOs of RMK. Loan up to Rs. 50,000 can be extended to a beneficiary for a duration of 60 months with an initial gestation period of six months. While RMK charges eight per cent per annum to an NGO, the NGOs in turn extend the loan to the beneficiaries charging an interest up to 18% per annum.

Tamil Nadu Women in Agriculture (TANWA), Tamil Nadu

The Project has been operational since October 1986. The project was initially implemented in six districts of Tamil Nadu and then expanded into ten districts. Phase II of this Project is was initiated in 1993 covering all the districts (except Chennai) and would end in March 2003.

The main objectives of the project were:

·         To increase agricultural productivity and to improve the economic and food security of small and marginal women farmers.

·         Enable women farmers to choose and adopt relevant agricultural technologies and practices.

·         To disseminate agricultural knowledge and skills from women farmers to fellow women farmers.

·         To improve women’s access to and improve their ability to use existing agricultural services

Village based training programmes were also planned and conducted on the following aspects:

o   Increasing fertiliser use efficiency

o   Organic manure conservation (FYM, compost enriched FYM)

o   Use of bio-fertiliser

o   Tree cropping

o   Field identification of pest/diseases

o   Seed treatment

o   Rat control

o   Grain storage

o   Crop wise fertiliser application and plant protection measures

o   Communication skills

After the training, follow-up visits were made (ten visits spread over two years) by women agricultural officers to provide guidance and support to the trained woman farmers on how to adopt the skills learnt during the village level training. Specialized training programmes were also organized for 1-2 days in other topics related to agriculture, for example, animal husbandry, agro-forestry, cash crops, sericulture, and pisciculture. Trained women farmers were also encouraged to establish women’s groups in their villages to share their knowledge and experiences with others.

New Dimension in order to women welfare

National Mission for Empowerment of Women 

National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW) is an initiative of the Government of India (GOI) for empowering women holistically. It is conceived as an umbrella mission with a mandate to strengthen inter-sectoral convergence and facilitate the process of coordinating all the women’s welfare and socio economic development programmes across ministries and departments.

The salient features of the National Mission for Empowerment of Women (NMEW) are:

1.      To ensure economic empowerment of women.

2.      To ensure that violence against women is eliminated progressively.

3.      To ensure social empowerment of women with emphasis on health and education.

4.      To oversee gender mainstreaming of programmes, policies, institutional arrangements and processes of participating Ministries, Institutions and Organizations.

5.      To undertake awareness generation as well as advocacy activities to fuel demand for benefits under various schemes and programmes and create, if required, structures at district,tehsil and village level with the involvement of Panchayats for their fulfillment.

Mission Statement

NMEW will achieve gender equality, and gender justice and holistic development of women through inter-sectoral convergence of programmes relating to women, forging synergy between various stakeholders and creating an enabling environment conducive to social change.

Focus areas of the Mission

·         Access to health, drinking water, sanitation and hygiene facilities for women

·         Coverage of all girls especially those belonging to vulnerable groups in schools from primary to class 12

·         Higher and Professional education for girls/women

·         Skill development, Micro credit, Vocational Training, Entrepreneurship, SHG development

·         Gender sensitization and dissemination of information

·         Taking steps to prevent crime against women and taking steps for a safe environment for women

Key Strategies

·         Facilitating inter-sector convergence of schemes meant for women, monitor and review the progress on regular basis

·         Strengthening institutional framework offering support service for women

·         At policy level commission research, evaluation studies, review schemes, programmes and legislation, do gender audit and outcome assessment to build the evidence for policy and programme reform and scale up implementation of the initiatives

·         Enhance economic empowerment of girls and women through skill development, micro credit, vocational training and entrepreneurship and SHG development

·         Evolve with the support of community representatives and groups appropriate and localized communication to strengthen public education on gender, behavior change and social mobilization using 360 degree approach on media and communication