The Indian agricultural sector is the world’s largest producer of pulses, milk, and jute, and the second-largest producer of rice, wheat, vegetables, fruit, and cotton. Climate change threatens food security worldwide and severely impacts the Indian agricultural sector. As a result of the unpredictable climate and low profits, economic uncertainty has forced men to seek employment in non-farming sectors. Under the deepening crisis, the farming landscape is transforming into a female-majority workforce.
1. Introduction
Most rural Indian households (70 per cent; 770 million people) still rely on agriculture as their prime source of livelihood, and India is still home to 190 million undernourished people and a quarter of the world’s hungry people
[1]. Moreover, according to the recent 2022 Global Hunger Index, India still ranks 107th out of 121 countries
[2]. Furthermore, agriculture, the traditional livelihood activity in India and the Global South, will be most severely impacted by climate change due to its dependence on climate-sensitive resources
[3]. Crucially, the aggravating climate crisis increasingly threatens the livelihood of small-scale farmers
[4][5][6]. The majority of farming households have marginal land holdings and are involved in resource-intensive cash crop cultivation, which is extensively rain-fed and climate-dependent. The cost of production has been increasing while profits have stagnated, placing farmers in huge debt. This has led to a catastrophic rate of suicide among male farmers
[7][8][9]. Recent data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in 2018 reveals that 10,349 farmers committed suicide in India in 2018 alone (9528 male and 821 female)
[10]. Under deepening agrarian distress, the Indian agricultural landscape has been drastically changing as men out-migrate from villages to seek employment in non-farm sectors which, in turn, has increased pressure on women to participate in agricultural work with greater responsibilities. This phenomenon has been termed the “feminisation of agriculture”
[11][12]. Consequently, scholars have argued that within the context of the agrarian crisis in the sector, the “feminisation of agriculture” is the “feminisation of agrarian distress”
[13][14]. The “feminisation of agriculture” places women at the forefront of the climate crisis; as this sector engages a majority of women, climatic variability would greatly impinge on their livelihoods and magnify issues of food insecurity, loss of income, security, and welfare
[3]. Despite the crucial role of women in agriculture and their significant contributions to food security and rural economies, there remains a notable lack of comprehensive research on how women’s social inclusion as farmers in India informs their economic development
[29]. While some studies have shed light on the economic and social challenges faced by women in agriculture, there is a need for more in-depth investigations that delve into the intricacies of the interconnectedness between women’s identities, roles, and experiences and their ability to equally and effectively economically perform within the farming sector
[23].
2. Feminisation of Agriculture
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report suggests that including women in agriculture would raise the agricultural output of developing countries by 2.5–4%, consequently reducing the number of hungry people in the world by 12–17%. In the Indian context, there has been a substantial increase of women working within agriculture, women make up 62.9% of the Indian agricultural workforce in 2021, in comparison to 38.1% of male workers [32]. The contribution of the feminisation of the agricultural sector to women’s welfare has been debated. A key argument is that increased participation only superficially empowers women. Although it provides them with work outside of their domestic contexts and thus provides them with an opportunity for monetary income, the opportunity arises in the context of agrarian crisis and distress, forcing women to take additional responsibilities on the farm while continuing to fulfil their unpaid domestic responsibilities [14]. Despite the doubled work burden and the multitude of activities women perform, they continue to experience a myriad of socio-economic constraints and are gravely disadvantaged in comparison to men when it comes to the issues of time, wages, and work burden [19][20][21][33][34], and have limited agency over decision making and farm management [19][22][35]. Scholars have stressed women’s lack of access to productive resources, such as credit, agricultural education [15][16][17] and, crucially, property and land rights [18][36]. Moreover, in their comparative study of two Indian states of West Bengal Gujarat, Pattnaik and Lahiri-Dutt (2020) also point out that women’s economic output and productivity are unevenly impacted by socioeconomic and cultural factors, such as household incomes, age, marital status, education, religion, caste, and social status [37]. There is also an intrinsic need to deeply analyse the additional work burden the feminisation of agriculture places on women. Researchers need to better understand the benefits and shortcomings of the feminisation of agriculture for a balanced approach to creating a pathway for women farmers’ overall development. Thus, within the context of changing roles of women and the feminisation of agriculture, it is crucial that the concerns of women farmers are recognised and addressed, not just for the goal of greater productivity but also for the goal of creating a just and sustainable society.
3. Women and Work: Social Norms and Constraints
In addition to the economic imperatives, social norms play a critical role in increasing the work burden of women in India. In the agri-food system, social norms discriminate between men and women, creating power imbalances, and restricting women’s opportunities. Gendered social norms restrict women’s mobility, limit their work options (apart from their domestic chores), and limit their access to the market
[24]. Data from the Indian census of 2011 and 2001 show that the proportion of female labourers in the sector has risen, while the proportion of female cultivators or managers has decreased
[38]. Thus, the feminisation of agriculture cannot be understood as managerial feminisation
[39]. Considering that rural women have low social mobility, their bargaining power for wages is also stunted. Whereas males and females are engaged in different jobs based on the social construct and the gendered division of labour, males and females are remunerated differently when working within the agricultural sector. This is largely due to the social perceptions developed over a period in the patriarchal setup, where women’s capabilities are always looked down upon as compared to men’s
[23]. A survey conducted on the average agricultural wages for five agricultural tasks from 20 Indian states from 2006 to 2016 shows a striking gender disparity in wages
[40]. The average daily wage rate of women in agriculture is 65–70% lower than that of men
[41]. Depending on the land ownership of their household, women in agriculture take on a variety of roles, ranging from farm managers to landless labourers. Women from impoverished households are, for the most part, considered additional unpaid hands in home-based farming and, thus, sometimes end up working as both managers of their own farms as well as paid labourers on the farms of others
[37]. Rao (2012) showed in her study that within the Indian rural context, men and women work together to establish the stereotypical gender roles—women as housewives and men as providers
[20]. In fact, various studies highlight that women invest more time in agricultural operations than their male counterparts
[43][44] as they carry the “triple burden of production, reproduction, and repressive societal norms” (
[37], p. 26) within the rigid gendered division of labour that exists in Indian agriculture
[19]. Rather than struggling for transformative change and asserting their identities as farmers, women focus on the incremental change in reconstructing gender relations and expanding their individual space in the household to gain reciprocity and recognition from their husbands within their own social realities
[20].
4. Access to Productive Resources and Ancillary Support
At the global level, less than 20 per cent of landholders are women in spite of the fact that they comprise half of the total agriculture labour force
[45]. In India, 70% of the total population and 80% of its impoverished live in rural areas. The most valuable asset for the rural agricultural economy is arable land
[41]. Land provides security against penury and is a cultural symbol of status. Land rights and ownership have institutionally, legally, and historically been out of reach for women due to the gender biases and orthodox socio-cultural practices deeply embedded in the patriarchal fabric of Indian society. The Hindu Succession Act of 1956 was amended in 2005, and only then did women legitimately acquire ownership through inheritance, which is the primary route by which they gain land ownership
[15]. A decade later, the Indian agriculture census (2015–16) indicated that only 13.87% of women own land in India. The average land holding owned by women is 0.94 hectares compared to 1.18 hectares in the case of men
[46]. Evidence from India and other developing countries shows that when women have access to economic resources, they use their income to fulfil household needs and benefit their children
[47]. Research has further shown that the children of women who own assets in rural India are more likely to attend school and have greater access to medical resources
[48]. Equality in land rights is crucial for women’s economic empowerment, which in turn increases their ability to confront the socio-cultural gender discrimination they face. Finally, when there is gender equity in land rights, productive efficiency on farms is enhanced, as land ownership increases women’s access to credit (as it serves as collateral) and to the much-required extension (technical aid, knowledge, and advisory services for farmers).
5. Recommendations & Discussion
Installation Theory enables one to make sense of a complex issue by compartmentalising an installation into three distinct layers (i.e., physical, embodied, and social), identifying the critical challenges across the three layers and investigating the way they reinforce each other and thus making the social setting resistant to change
[30]. Installation Theory suggests, however, that informed and thoroughly designed interventions can target any one of the three layers to shift the system towards desired behavioural change
[49]. In this section, researchers draw on the two main data sources that informed researchers' analysis and finding presentation in the previous section to develop feasible, pragmatic recommendations that can drive meaningful, sustainable change for Indian women farmers in both the short and long term. It is practically impossible to design real-world interventions that will affect each layer of such a socially complex installation in isolation. With this limitation in mind, the first group of recommendations aims to improve women farmers’ access to productive resources and, in this sense, targets more clearly the physical layer of the installation. The primary goal of the second group of recommendations is to promote public and societal awareness of the key role that women play in Indian agriculture and is, therefore, more heavily oriented toward addressing the institutional or social layers of the installation. The final set of recommendations focuses mainly on empowering women farmers, building their vocational and social skills, and enhancing their well-being, and can, therefore, be seen as primarily targeting the embodied or competence layer of the installation.
In the research, researchers unpacked the systemic obstructions that women farmers face in their daily work and social interactions within the Indian feminised farming sector. Researchers' findings highlighted the ongoing discrimination women face on the one hand, and their ability to creatively navigate their circumstances, using subtle mundane everyday coping strategies, on the other hand
[50][51]. Feminised Indian agriculture is a complex production–consumption system in which women farmers function as the main producers of agricultural outputs as well as the consumers of agricultural inputs, resources, and final yields
[52][53]. Researchers have shown how women farmers are channelled through the agricultural installation through multilayered physical, cognitive, psychological, and societal structures whilst interacting with multiple stakeholders
[30][31]. Crucially, researchers have shown that women farmers are regularly placed in vulnerable, backstage positions in which their control over or access to fundamental resources is significantly restricted in comparison to their male counterparts as a result of the patriarchal social structure of the sector
[54].Our paper contributes to the emerging theoretical conversation in the field of gender equality within Indian agriculture
[3][23][25][26][27]. Despite the crucial role of women in agriculture and their significant contributions to food security and rural economies, a notable gap in the comprehensive research on women’s roles and identities as farmers within the agricultural systems in India has been pointed out
[23][24][55]. Addressing this research gap is vital to inform evidence-based policies and interventions that can promote gender equality, rural development, and sustainable agriculture
[26][28].
Public perceptions and attitudes towards women farmers are also crucial in shaping policies, support systems, and societal acceptance of their roles in agriculture
[56]. Researchers' findings also revealed a range of misconceptions and biases that hinder women’s access to resources, credit, and markets and how they affect their overall agency and empowerment
[19][21][23][26][58][59][60][61]. Creating interventions aimed at bridging the gap in public perceptions can lead to increased support and investment in initiatives targeted at empowering women farmers, as well as more gender-responsive policies that address the specific needs and challenges faced by women in agriculture, including their food security
[55][62][63][64][65][66][67]. Furthermore, in this research, researchers responded to recent policymakers’ and scholars’ calls to shift the focus of research to the investigation of strategies that can promote public awareness and improve the public’s perception of women within agriculture and, perhaps even more importantly, to examine ways in which women’s self-image and vocational identification as farmers can be empowered
[3][23][25][26][27].
Researchers utilised Installation Theory as a pragmatic, applied theoretical framework that seeks to facilitate change by compartmentalising complex social settings to illuminate and leverage new avenues for intervention
[30][31]. Using Installation Theory enabled researchers to make sense of this extremely complex context. Installation Theory suggests that intervening in any one of these layers has the potential to shift behaviour towards a more sustainable outcome, both in the short and long run
[30][31][68][69][70]. Researchers' analysis of the Indian feminised installation paid careful attention to identifying the critical challenges across the three layers of the installation
[31][50]. In doing so, researchers examined the manner in which the three layers interacted with each other and identified specific leverage points that enabled researchers to develop relevant interventions that could drive an incremental yet sustainable change within this resistant context
[20][28][30][71]. Researchers paid particular attention to the unique challenges and contributions of women farmers and examined the intricacies of their social reality. Researchers identified and outlined targeted strategies, that aimed at improving women’s social status, strengthening social networks, improving access to resources, and enhancing the well-being and empowerment of women in agriculture
[72][73]. Overall, researchers' work will contribute, researchers hope, to the fostering of a positive shift in societal attitudes toward women farmers, acknowledging and valuing their vital contributions to sustaining rural livelihoods and ensuring food security.