Women Poverty And Agricultural Growth In India

The Indian experience with reforms in the last two decades reveals that while there have been achievements on the economic growth front, inequalities have increased and exclusion continues. This volume emphasizes the need for economic reforms with equitable development. It focuses on key inter-related elements of inclusive growth: agriculture, poverty, food security and employment, social sector, and regional disparities; examining the performance, issues, and challenges. The author argues for pro-poor and people- centric policies. He suggests that growth and equity objectives should be pursued simultaneously.

This publication considers the effects of gender on access within the family and beyond. It is based on a more detailed study of women's involvement in key sectors of the Indian economy, the returns they are getting, and the critical constraints they face in increasing their access to, and productivity in, these sectors. Three fundamental observations emerge. First, women are vital productive workers in India's national economy. Second, the poorer the family, the greater its dependence on women's economic productivity. The third observation is that, as a society, India invests far less in women workers than in its working men. India's women also have less access than do men to health services and nutrition. These gender based asymmetrics are contributing factors in India's high child mortality rates and persistently high birth rates.

Traditionally women's role in agriculture is staggering with nearly half of the population involved in agriculture and its related activities. Most of the agricultural activities are women specific but tragically worldwide women mostly end up as hired agricultural labourers with substantial gender disparity in wages earning far less than men in the same job. To add to her economic woes, inadequate education, less than satisfactory dissemination of technology, globalization, economic liberalization, commercialization, urbanization, political instability, natural disasters, mechanization of agriculture, decreased agriculture, migration of men to urban areas, and occupational health hazards such as prolonged hours of physical labour resulting in musculo-skeletal injuries, pesticide poisoning also make the life of rural women miserable. True, there are policies and programmes of central and state government to alleviate their problems but they are proportionately insufficient and their execution far from satisfactory. Much needs to be done in disseminating gender segregated data and gender bias in all aspects of agriculture, access to resources including land and natural resources, drudgery reduction, assuring nutritional security, diversification of activities of Self Health Groups and Street Shakti groups with emphasis on productivity including post harvest technology, creation of marketing facilities, ownership to land and other allied resources rural electrification, outreach from the media, collectives of women and inter linking of SHGs, adult literacy, health awareness, gender sensitization of extension functionaries and financials institutions, awareness about pesticide hazard etc. Tragically rural women are not vociferous on issues like foetal killing of female unborn, high rate of female mortality, creation of Special Economic Zones replacing productive lands, farmer's suicide and the plight of their widows, fate of pavement vendors and petty shop keepers replaced by retail outlets of big business houses, etc. The struggle cannot be won by only educated and Non Government Organizations on their behalf. The affected and victimized have to fight directly against the injustice they are facing. Extension workers and NGOs need to help them to become aware of their rights and government programmes specially designed for them and motivate them to redress their problems on their own. This needs scientifically collected information on their problems and relief measures available. The book, Women in Agriculture and Rural Development is a sincere attempt in this endeavour. It has valuable chapters on gender inequality in agriculture, technological and economic empowerment of women, poverty alleviation and training programmes, role of SHGs and Street Shakti Groups in rural development, capacity building, nutritional profile of rural women, drudgery and its reduction, natural resources conservation and food security

'Gender and Governance in Rural Services' provides policy-relevant knowledge on strategies to improve agricultural and rural service delivery with a focus on providing more equitable access to these services, especially for women. It focuses India, Ethiopia, and Ghana, and focuses on two public services: agricultural extension, as an example of an agricultural service, and on drinking water, as an example of rural service that is not directly related to agriculture but is of high relevance for rural women. It provides empirical microlevel evidence on how different accountability mechanisms for agricultural advisory services and drinking water provision work in practice, and analyzes factors that influence the suitability of different governance reform strategies that aim at making service provision more gender responsive. It presents major findings from the quantitative and qualitative research conducted under the project in the three countries, which are analyzed in a qualitative way to identify major patterns of accountability routes in agricultural and rural service provision and to assess their gender dimension. The book is intended for use by a wide audience interested in agricultural and rural service provision, including researchers, members of the public administration, policy makers, and staff from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international development agencies who are involved in the design and management of reform efforts, projects, and programs dealing with rural service provision.

This book presents an extensive study on India’s agricultural and nonfarm sectors, examining prices, investments and policies, and suggesting various essential technological changes. It offers appropriate financial, institutional, and policy frameworks that can help to sustain agricultural growth and augment farmers’ incomes across geographical locations. Further, it addresses agricultural growth and rural poverty reduction through multiple pathways that also tackle varied geographical locations, making it a highly useful guide to understanding the changing contours in agriculture and rural areas across the country and among rural households with various social and economic backgrounds.

Many development programs that aim to alleviate poverty and improve investments in human capital consider women’s empowerment a key pathway by which to achieve impact and often target women as their main beneficiaries. Despite this, women’s empowerment dimensions are often not rigorously measured and are at times merely assumed. This paper starts by reflecting on the concept and measurement of women’s empowerment and then reviews some of the structural interventions that aim to influence underlying gender norms in society and eradicate gender discrimination. It then proceeds to review the evidence of the impact of three types of interventions—cash transfer programs, agricultural interventions, and microfinance programs—on women’s empowerment, nutrition, or both. Qualitative evidence on conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs generally points to positive impacts on women’s empowerment, although quantitative research findings are more heterogenous. CCT programs produce mixed results on long-term nutritional status, and very limited evidence exists of their impacts on micronutrient status. The little evidence available on unconditional cash transters (UCT) indicates mixed impacts on women’s empowerment and positive impacts on nutrition; however, recent reviews comparing CCT and UCT programs have found little difference in terms of their effects on stunting and they have found that conditionality is less important than other factors, such as access to healthcare and child age and sex. Evidence of cash transfer program impacts depending on the gender of the transfer recipient or on the conditionality is also mixed, although CCTs with non-health conditionalities seem to have negative impacts on nutritional status. The impacts of programs based on the gender of the transfer recipient show mixed results, but almost no experimental evidence exists of testing gender-differentiated impacts of a single program. Agricultural interventions—specifically home gardening and dairy projects—show mixed impacts on women’s empowerment measures such as time, workload, and control over income; but they demonstrate very little impact on nutrition. Implementation modalities are shown to determine differential impacts in terms of empowerment and nutrition outcomes. With regard to the impact of microfinance on women’s empowerment, evidence is also mixed, although more recent reviews do not find any impact on women’s empowerment. The impact of microfinance on nutritional status is mixed, with no evidence of impact on micronutrient status. Across all three types of programs (cash transfer programs, agricultural interventions, and microfinance programs), very little evidence exists on pathways of impact, and evidence is often biased toward a particular region. The paper ends with a discussion of the findings and remaining evidence gaps and an outline of recommendations for research.

In his study of the poverty alleviation programmes, the author finds that even though the poorest of the poor are relatively efficient in utilizing the assistance they receive, the schemes themselves are heavily dependent on the bureaucracy, leading to inefficiencies and leakages. Environmental degradation is attributed to the slow rate of land-augmenting technological change and the inequitable distribution of gains resulting in pressure on the environment from the poor as well as the affluent. On account of the low rate of capital formation and relatively efficient use of available resources, the author sees little scope for raising agricultural output in India merely by freeing the markets. On the basis of his study, Dr Rao recommends stepping up public investment in agriculture, especially in irrigation and research, as essential to raise the growth rate, and to realize the possible gains from trade as well as to ensure the equitable sharing of such gains.

Our is basically an agricultural country. It is a source of livelihood for over 70 per cent of the population depend on agriculture. Therefore it has become a family enterprise. The whole family of men, women and children work on it and earn their livelihood. Men's role in agriculture is widely known, but women's role is not that open, though they mostly work for more number of hours, with less privileges, tedious activities and with painful postures. It is only in the recent times that their role is being recognized, though there is a possibility that the women themselves are not aware of their contributions, hardships, and above all over burden of not only the household jobs but jobs related to agriculture and allied fields. The conditions is worse when they work on fields not of their own but on others. India is a vast country marked by different regions with diverse agro-climatic conditions. Hence the importance of conducting region-specific studies. The present study is conducted in Chittoor, one of the for districts of the drought-prone Rayalaseema region in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Of the total female work force in Chittoor District, 85.3 per cent are engaged in farm sector either as cultivators or as agricultural labourers. There is need for region-specific studies to gain clearer and deeper insights into the extent of women’s participation in agriculture and allied enterprises, problems confronted by them, and shifts in policy measures to be made to help them play a productive role and act as effective partners, along with men, in agricultural and rural development. The present humble attempt to make a micro level study.