Empowering Women in Agriculture: Unleashing Rural Women's Voice to End Hunger and Poverty

According to FAO, over 70 per cent of the economically active women in least developed countries work in agriculture and women farmers account for over 25 per cent of the world's population. If they are enabled to have easy, timely and reliable access to resources as men, women can increase yield by 20 per cent to 30 per cent raising the overall agricultural output by 2.5 per cent to 4.0 per cent in developing countries. This gain in production can reduce the number of hungry people in the world by about 12 per cent to 17 per cent and increase women's income. In India, agriculture and allied sectors employ 89.5 per cent of the total female labor. About 84 per cent women are engaged in agriculture, either as cultivators or laborers as against 67 per cent male workers. Women on an average contribute 55 per cent to 66 per cent in farm production. In the Himalayan region, a woman works for 3,485 hours in a year on one hectare farm as compared with 1,212 hours by a man and 1,064 hours by a pair of bullocks. In recent years more and more women are engaged in farming as men are migrating to urban centers for work. However, in absence of legal ownership over the land they have no access to credit and insurance services. Only 12.78 per cent women have access to land holdings. With the declaration of Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nation's General Assembly in September, 2015, India is committed to achieve gender equality and empower all women and end hunger and poverty by 2030. Unleashing rural women's voice to end hunger and poverty in developing countries has now been a sine qua non since women play a significant role in agriculture in low income countries where agriculture accounts for on an average 32 per cent of GDP and where on an average 70 per cent of countries’ poor live and work in rural areas. In this context, this article briefly highlights the women's role in India's agriculture, need for empowerment and suggests issues that need focused attention while designing policy and programs for women's empowerment