Does group farming empower rural women?: The Indian experience

The paper states that the initiatives under study were significant because they recognised women as farmers independent of their identities on family farms where women typically engage in unpaid labour and enjoy limited autonomy. This was especially important as women make up more than 35 per cent of all agricultural workers in India.

The collective farming project in Telangana (then undivided Andhra Pradesh) was initiated by the United Nations Development Programme along with the Indian government. It was promoted by the Andhra Pradesh Mahila Samatha Society (APMSS) through the Samatha Dharani project which used existing village-level women collectives or sangha to establish farming collectives called Samatha Dharani Groups (SDGs). In Kerala, these farming collectives were structured on the self-help group model which eventually developed as Joint Liability Groups (JLGs).

For comparison, the study also observed individual farms in both states. In Telangana, the individual farms were either non-group farms or farms belonging to the participating women’s families. In Kerala, all individual farms studied were those in the women’s families and generally managed by their husbands or adult sons. The paper evaluates women’s economic empowerment based on the input and output of the farms, as well as the productivity and profitability of the group farms compared to the individual ones.

The study found that group farms were more productive than individual farms in Kerala but less successful in Telangana. Some of the structural constraints faced by the Telangana groups were lack of technical and financial aid by the state, limited access to good quality land and the programme runners’ emphasis on cultivating food grains as opposed to cash crops, the paper states. It adds that a bigger group size and a homogeneous composition consisting of almost entirely Scheduled Caste women limited their economic and social reach.

In Kerala, JLGs outperformed individual farms in terms of annual crop output per hectare. For example, their annual crop output for banana was on an average 1.6 times as high as those of the individual farms that were typically managed by men.

In Telangana, SDGs performed only slightly better than Non-Group Farms (NGFs) in their average net returns owing to their lower expenditure on inputs. In contrast, the group farms in Kerala had a mean net return of Rs. 121,048 per JLG. This was five times higher than that of individual farms.

In listing other economic gains that group farming brings, the paper states that group farming brought considerable fallow land into cultivation. In Telangana, the SDGs cultivated 2,262 hectares of fallow land across the 500 project villages in 2004. In Kerala, programme runners identified 31,714 hectares of fallow land, 40 per cent of which was being leased and cultivated by women’s group farms in 2016.

The paper notes that in both states, group farming enhanced women’s farming capabilities. This was because it required women’s groups to open bank accounts, track funds, interact with government and private agencies and negotiate with the market familiarising them with several public institutions crucial for farmers. Further, through the systematic transfer of agricultural knowledge, and experience of financial freedom, group farming helped women develop a strong identity as farmers instead of ‘farm labourers’ or ‘farm wives’.

The study states that group farming might have had mixed economic results in Kerala and Telangana, but it made net positive contributions to women’s social empowerment. It made visible women’s as yet unacknowledged contribution to community and family, through their contribution to household income. Several SDG members felt that they enjoyed a better social status and people recognised their work.

It is difficult to measure the impact of the group farming programmes on women’s political empowerment since a number of factors could have influenced women’s political participation including long-standing women’s groups functioning at the village level. However, the paper gives a cursory overview by looking at women candidates in Panchayati Raj elections.

In the three districts of Telangana under study, 371 women won elections in 2001 and 285 won in 2005. In Kerala, 11,773 women from panchayat-level community development societies contested elections in 2010, of which 5,485 won their seats.

Based on observations made in the study, the paper suggests easing of land constraints and allow leasing of land. It also states that groups which are allowed to decide what crops to grow are more likely to perform better by choosing options that fare well in the local ecology as well as markets.

Focus and Factoids by Shruti Chakraborty.