Women Farmers: Challenges And Opportunities

According to the United Nations, women comprise approximately 43 percent of the world’s agricultural labour force, but these involvements only give them access to the labouring part not to the decision-making areas like irrigation, land management, and other agricultural cooperatives.

- Malini Saba

According to traditional policy makers or believers, women are less efficient crop producers in agriculture. Many studies conducted in different parts of the world have revealed the data that talks about the issue of less productivity, but the reasons behind the gap aren’t that the woman is less efficient, instead the reason is lack of proper resources, information, and access to facilities.

If proper guidance and education are provided to women, many of them can change the scenarios in their families. The issue of the gender gap is highly acknowledged now by governments, scientists, and farmers as the lost opportunities and potential gains that could have been managed with the help of gender equality on food security, livelihood and other developments. The Indian government has initiated various programs supporting women farmers on various platforms like national television, radio, the establishment of ‘Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK)’ and various other self-help groups where women farmers are trained to learn new tactics and ways of good farming.

I have come across many women farmers who have started with the bare minimum resources but with the help of KVK and other self-help groups; they have changed their way of farming. They started with a small farm that had a few lemon trees, cashew plants and rubber trees but with proper guidance and sustainable methods, they have now grown it into a big earning business for themselves. Not just good production of crops but they have also learned the techniques to have disease management, nutrient management and organic recycling. These women are a big inspiration and example for people who still believe that women are less productive farmers than males. Despite this, women farmers are still facing lots of challenges in the agriculture sector. This article will address some examples of those challenges and will also suggest suitable options to eradicate them.