Growing Migration by Men is Causing ‘Feminisation’ of Agriculture Sector, Says Economic Survey

Economic Survey 2017-18, tabled by the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Shri Arun Jaitley in Parliament today, says that with growing rural to urban migration by men, there is ‘feminisation’ of agriculture sector, with increasing number of women in multiple roles as cultivators, entrepreneurs, and labourers. Globally, there is empirical evidence that women have a decisive role in ensuring food security and preserving local agro-biodiversity. Rural women are responsible for the integrated management and use of diverse natural resources to meet the daily household needs. This requires that women farmers should have enhanced access to resources like land, water, credit, technology and training which warrants critical analysis in the context of India. In addition, the entitlements of women farmers will be the key to improve agriculture productivity. The differential access of women to resources like land, credit, water, seeds and markets needs to be addressed. Towards this, Government has been implementing various schemes which help improve the entitlements of women farmers, which will prove to be advantageous in bridging the policy gaps which exits in the sector. The following measures have been taken to ensure mainstreaming of women in agriculture sector: 

• Earmarking at least 30% of the budget allocation for women beneficiaries in all ongoing schemes/programmes and development activities. 
• Initiating women centric activities to ensure benefits of various beneficiary-oriented programs/schemes reach them. 
• Focusing on women self-help group (SHG) to connect them to micro-credit through capacity building activities and to provide information and ensuring their representation in different decision-making bodies. 
• Recognizing the critical role of women in agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has declared 15th October of every year as Women Farmer’s Day. 

With women predominant at all levels-production, pre-harvest, post-harvest processing, packaging, marketing – of the agricultural value chain, to increase productivity in agriculture, it is imperative to adopt gender specific interventions. An ‘inclusive transformative agricultural policy’ should aim at gender-specific intervention to raise productivity of small farm holdings, integrate women as active agents in rural transformation, and engage men and women in extension services with gender expertise.