Do you consider agriculture in India a male occupation? Think again. The fact is that 79 per cent of working women are agricultural workers. Yet, because women are still seen as labourers rather than farmers – only nine per cent own land – they are not considered as farmers.
But change is taking place. Women farmers, sole proprietors of their agricultural land, are transforming ground realities gradually. Take Malleswari and Lakshmidevamma, aged 38 and 51 years respectively, determined and friendly women from Vempalle mandal (a revenue sub-division) of Cuddapah, a semi-arid district in south-central Andhra Pradesh.
Malleswari shares her story, “My family has been in farming for generations and I, myself, am passionate about agriculture and have been involved in it since my childhood.
After I married my maternal uncle when I turned 16, he transferred 4 acres to my name. For the last 12 years, I have led a group of 10 women farmers who all have pattas (titles) to land. As a group we do not use artificial fertilisers or pesticides.” Incidentally, farming is not the only activity that Malleswari engages in. A Class Two dropout, she worked on her reading and writing skills through classes conducted under require less effort. Observes Malleswari, “Spraying artificial fertilisers increases the expense per acre greatly – vermicompost, in contrast, reduces expenses by almost a third.” She has also learnt, through experts like Adinarayana Kottam, regional coordinator (Rayalaseema), for the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), that chemical fertilisers and insecticides on crops could harm children, besides reducing the overall nutritional value of vegetables, fruits, grains and other edibles. Women, because of their caring responsibilities, are much faster at understanding the advantages of organic farming.
Farmers in Cuddapah district cultivate vegetables like lime, chickpea and coriander during the rabi period (sown in winter and harvested in spring) and cotton, groundnuts and sesame during the kharif season (sown during the rainy season and harvested in autumn). Some like Malleswari own a couple of buffaloes and sell milk for additional household income. If the rains are good, groundnut is sown twice annually. Reveals a feisty Malleswari, the Andhra government’s Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas’ Velugu programme – ‘velugu’ means glow of light” in Telugu. This has enabled her to track the media and kept her current with news developments.
Malleswari has educated herself about natural methods of farming. Not only are she and her women farmer colleagues reviving traditional methods of cultivation, they have switched to natural fertilisers and vermicomposting. According to Malleswari, male farmers prefer mechanised agriculture and chemical fertilisers because they “This time, we had enough rainfall after nearly three years and we have dug pits, some 20 to 50 metres deep, and buil tanks to store rain water for the future, since we don’t have canal irrigation here. The stored water could last for around six months.” What is more, she has also used the opportunity to educate children and adults in her community about the need to conserve precious water.
In Pamaluru village in the same district, another earth warrior, Lakshmidevamma, soldiers on. She is the only woman among 12 organic farmers in her village and has many an agricultural tip to share. “I grow methi (fenugreek), jowar (sorghum), korralu (Telugu for foxtail millet), chana dal (chickpea), peanuts, and urad dal (black lentil) on my seven-acre plot – which includes two acres bequeathed to her by her late mother.
Says Lakshmidevamma, “I have never used chemical fertilisers on my farm but I did not advocate the use of natural crop nutrients publicly until 2010.” Her association with the Vennela Rural Development Society (VRDS), a local nongovernment organisation that works to promote agricultural practices that adapt to climate change, made Lakshmidevamma more socially conscious. Today she is an active member and leader of a local women’s self-help group and was the former president of her Gram Panchayat despite being barely literate and has been invited to demonstrate the making of natural fertilisers like ‘ganajeevanamrutam’ and ‘yerrapuchakaya’ and ‘maaredu kashayam’ to the farmers in not just her village but in neighbouring ones. While ‘ganajeevanamrutam’ is a mixture of jaggery, gram flour, besan (chickpea flour), cow dung and urine, as well as other types of flour, ‘yerrapuchakaya’ and ‘maaredu kashayam’ are liquid nutrients made from fruits such as melons and bael (wood apple), dried leaves and other ingredients.
Says the pragmatic Lakshmidevamma, “We began talking about the merits of natural fertilisers at weekly meetings with small groups of largely women farmers and also distributed leaflets containing relevant information. To prove our point, we cultivated crops on a 0.75 acre plot applying natural fertilisers which cost less than a thousand rupees. In contrast, we pointed out that spraying artificial fertilisers five times a day cost around five thousand.”
Lakshmidevamma’s fame has spread in the area and she, along with other women farmers, earns some extra money from selling her fertilisers, as well as her organic foodgrains and oil, which is sold through a farmers’ cooperative unit established in 2012.
In 2012, a woman farmer from Payasampalle village in Irapanaampally block read about her and requested training in preparing natural fertilisers. Over the next six months, Laskhmidevamma visited the woman every second day imparting the necessary information. That woman went on to plant 3,800 pomegranate trees on 11 acres using ‘maaredu kashayam’ and other natural fertilisers.
She also sowed maize, peanuts and korralu amidst the trees and got a fantastic yield. Today she, in turn, is inspiring others to follow suit.
For Lakshmidevamma, Malleswari and many other women, there is always something more to learn. They now understand how to ensure correct and complete wages for the work they do under the MGNREGA work – which they seek after deficient or failed monsoons. They have also come to believe that financial independence and land ownership are central if women are to tackle abusive spouses or a violent family situation.
The one issue that rankles with them, however, is lack of government support. Observes Aditi Kapoor, Director (Policy Advocacy and Partnership), Alternative Futures, who has interacted closely with these women farmers, “Women labouring on farms are considered as mere workers and not as knowledge bearers.
Most government programmes do not address their specific requirements. For instance, their need for tank silt instead of artificial fertilisers is hardly known or met. The contribution of women through kitchen gardens and small poultry farms is rarely recognised. Women do not get subsidised seeds or loans easily as the land is not in their name, generally speaking.”
According to Kapoor, it is high time that the government at all levels deal with women in agriculture= directly and include them as decision makers and participants in policy creation and implementation. She says, “Women leaders need training, not just in participating in gram panchayat administration but also in thematic areas like agriculture, animal husbandry, and horticulture.”
This is precisely the approach that farmers like Malleswari and Lakshmidevamma, are seeking. They want the government to facilitate the formation of women farmer groups and support their entry into agricultural co-operatives irrespective of land ownership. They also argue that government banks and lending organisations must step forward and provide subsidies for organic farming and insurance against crop loss. These steps are crucial if these women farmers, working hard to evolve an important alternative model of sustainable agriculture, are to reap a rich harvest.