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| Gender issues in agriculture
— An idea refusing to take roots |
| - Rasheeda Bhagat |
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| "I HOLD the most prestigious
name in agriculture in this country, and still I can't
get an appointment with the DG, ICAR (Director-General
of Indian Council for Agricultural Research)! They'll
be very polite and say, `Yes, madam, very good madam.'
I don't want to waste my time going to his room to have
tea and exchange pleasantries. Fayda kya." The
frustration of Mrs Mina Swaminathan, wife of Dr M. S.
Swaminathan, perhaps the country's No 1 agriculture
scientist, is palpable. |
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| For a year now she has been knocking
on various doors to make at least one of the 120 agricultural
universities in India introduce in its curriculum a
short 18-hour module pertaining to gender issues in
agriculture and rural livelihood. |
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| An advisor to the Chennai-based
M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), on education,
communication and gender, she had conceived the idea
and worked on developing such a curriculum since 1999.
It was needed because "people in various areas
of agriculture — the extension departments, the
Ministry, the agricultural universities, the ICAR or
the research system, the Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVK)...
the entire agricultural bureaucracy... is gender insensitive.
They're supposed to be serving the farming community
but they see only one half of this community —
the men. The entire agricultural establishment does
little for women because they're not aware of women
and their problems," she says. |
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| One of the reasons for this is that
historically the academic, research and other streams
of agriculture have been headed by men "and the
traditional perception of the kisan is male." |
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| Ms Mina Swaminathan says that her
husband is now preparing a National Policy for Farmers
(NPF) and a group has been formed to ensure that gender
sensitivities, problems and concerns feature in this
document. "I'm struggling to find a gender-neutral
word, because both `farmer' in English and `kisan' in
Hindi, denote the male gender in people's perception.
If you say farmer or kisan, for most people it denotes
a man though it can well be a woman. I'm searching for
a gender-neutral word such as mazdoor, but in vain." |
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| She thinks a gender curriculum for
agricultural students is necessary because "if
you want to sensitise the agricultural bureaucracy where
do you start? If you start with the extension personnel
how many courses can you make and how do your reach
them? Again the KVK is such a vast network." Even
though everybody, "beginning with the Director
of Agriculture," needs short courses, a good starting
point would be youngsters entering agricultural universities. |
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| In 1999, as a maiden initiative,
a seminar for representatives from 15 agricultural universities
was held at the MSSRF, following which a sensitisation
course for the faculty was formulated. The only university
that responded was the Kerala Agricultural University,
and a course was conducted for its faculty. This was
followed by five workshops and then with the help of
Sara Ahmed, a scholar working in water, irrigation,
etc, the curriculum was devised as a two-credit course
that can be taught in one semester. |
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| "An introduction to gender
issues in agriculture and rural livelihoods, this just
requires three hours a week for six weeks. But no university,
including the Kerala university which was initially
so responsive, is able to find time for 18 hours in
a four-and-half-year course! They say we can't give
18 hours, we're full," says Ms Mina Swaminathan. |
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| She is keen that this course is
introduced in the first seminar; "if they get the
idea of gender at the entry level, there is chance of
a greater impact. The strange thing is that there are
now more girls than boys entering agricultural universities
in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka, and yet no university
wants this course." |
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| Women in agriculture |
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| According to the 2001 Census, 28
per cent of all working women are farmers — even
though not all have land titles — and 46 per cent
are labourers, the remaining being in non-agricultural
areas. In agricultural labour, 56 per cent are men and
44 per cent women. |
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| "In the previous Census it
was 62 per cent men and 38 per cent women, which means
that more women are becoming labourers as men either
migrate or do something else. In Tamil Nadu, it is already
51 per cent women and 49 per cent men, with men migrating
to other jobs," says Ms Mina Swaminathan, adding
that farming too is getting more feminised thanks to
men's migration, leaving women to take care of the land. |
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| On the gender curriculum, she says
that "hundreds of letters" sent to vice-chancellors
of agricultural universities, the ICAR, the Agriculture
Ministry, etc., have had no impact. Recently, AFPRO
(Action for Food Production), a Non-Governmental Organisation
providing socio-technical support to village-level NGOs,
asked for a course for 15 of its officers. And she is
still waiting "for at least one agricultural university
to introduce this course; we're willing to do a demo,
train the teachers, etc, but so far there is absolutely
no interest. And it is frustrating to see so many years
of work go waste." |
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| Another concern is that though more
girls are entering the agricultural stream of education,
"after they finish, they don't want to go to the
field; they want lab or teaching jobs." But this
is more because of the lack of transport and accommodation
facilities in the field and issues related to safety
and security. "Also, when women with children prefer
to return home during field trips, this is considered
a privilege; people don't understand that women need
to be given support services if they are to do a good
job," she says. |
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| She adds that the recent murder
of a woman in the ITES industry had raised such a hue
and cry, "but in the rural areas the security of
women is always an issue. Where are the transport or
hostel facilities for women? The BPOs get so much publicity,
but the women working there do not face any more a problem
than faced for years by women who work as nurses or
telephone operators on night shifts." |
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| Another drawback on the gender
front in agriculture is the other extreme, "when
people say `Ayyo pavam' (poor women), we must do something
for them and immediately talk about starting SHGs (self-help
groups). Women in agriculture need technical help, credit,
title to land... everybody can't join an SHG. And why
should a woman with land join an SHG? She is an agriculturist
in her own right." The other response, Ms Mina
Swaminathan says, is to say, " `let's teach her
tailoring or to make sauce and jam'. Now how much sauce
can a woman make, and where is she going to sell it?" |
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| Another concern on women in agriculture
and related areas is that in horticulture or dairy,
where labour is provided usually by women, they do not
get the profits. "Similarly women take care of
the cattle, milk the cows, etc., but in the milk co-operatives,
the members are mostly men. Right from the early days
the women do all the work in the milk co-operatives,
but the profits come in the name of men." |
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| Ms Mina Swaminathan is now waiting
for a response from Gandhigram University for doing
a gender sensitisation course for the KVKs, which are
the education centres for farmers at the district level,
and the Dhan Foundation, to explore the possibility
of such a course for NGOs. |
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| Source : The Hindu Business
line, 30 December, 2005 |
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