It is 4 am in the morning and it’s time for Aarti devi to start her day. After taking care of her domestic animals, at 8 in the morning she bathes and is ready to start her kitchen.
Once done with the work in her kitchen, it’s time for her to set out for the fields with her two children for a grueling day of hard work, till sunset.
26 years old Aarti, a resident of Kasimpur Berua village of Goisainganj block, situated 20 km of Lucknow District office, is not paid daily for her grueling hard work on the fields.
And the logic behind this is that she is working on the fields that belongs to her family. Since she is a woman she can never be the part of the government’s agriculture census.
“The wives of 89 lakh small and medium category farmers in the state spend an average of 7 hours daily on the fields, but these women are not included in the official agricultural census. Only the male counterparts are recognized as the farmer.” says the convener of the “Aaroh campaign” which fights for the right of the women farmers in the state to the media.
As Aarti reaches home after a busy day on the field, she gears herself up for the second half of her day’s schedule. She has to look after her children, get the dinner ready for the family, milk the cow and lots of other small bits of work, which she completes before its 9 pm. When asked about why she has to complete all her household duties by 9 pm, she says “Because 9 pm onwards it’s time for my favorite daily soaps on the TV”.
She watches her favorite daily soaps till 10 and then it’s time for her to go for sleep as another busy day awaits her.
The women in rural India play an equally responsible role, whether in shouldering the responsibilities of the family or contributing in the hard work on the fields. In some agricultural belts of India, women are contributing more than men in terms of grinding hard work.
Even then women in rural India have never got the status of a farmer, neither from the family nor from the government.
Prof A.K Singh, director of Giri Institute in Lucknow, an accomplished agricultural economist and well known researcher on social issues tells a media outlet, “We have done a thorough research on it and found that a women shoulders 95% of the house hold work load, and involved in more than 66% of the work related to the husbandry and even works more than men on the field. Even after that she has never been made a partner in the monthly earning of the household.”
As per a report from the Aaroh campaign in UP, more than 91 % of the women in the state are involved in the agricultural related activities, even after that she is only considered to a labourer who is helping the men on the field.
While in the census conducted every decade in the country, farming is mentioned as one of the employment options for men but women are only considered as housewives whether for the household responsibities or for the work load of farming.
Women in these households sadly do not even get privileges of government schemes. The women farmers don’t have ownership of agricultural land, which means they are not eligible for the agricultural schemes of the government. While in UP more than 70-80 percent of the work related to agricultural and farming related work has been managed by the women, while only 6.5 percent have the ownership of land.
According to a study done with the co-operation of Oxfam India a national level organization, for the environmental action group in Gorahpur, it came up in the report women have only 4% partnership in agricultural equipments and resources in UP. As most of women farmers don’t have the farming equipments, thus only 4% of them holds the Kissan credit card. Neelam, convener of the Aaroh Campaign in UP ells a media outlet, “As very few of the women farmers have in the state have the ownership of land that’s why almost most of them never get the benefit of these schemes.”
In UP only 0.6% women farmers are able to participate in training camps. These camps help them to get good knowledge about the recent technologies, new schemes and the current rate of their agricultural produce.
As per the study done by the organization, 83 % women farmers are actively contributing in seed preparations, 72% in sowing process, 70% in the weeding, 62% in harvesting and 86% are involve in the grain accumulation process.
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