In addition, women need to be involved in all aspects of livestock development – breeding, veterinary care, extension services, training or credit and access to markets.
In addition, women need to be involved in all aspects of livestock development – breeding, veterinary care, extension services, training or credit and access to markets.
The livestock sector is one of the fastest growing components of India’s rural economy, accounting for 5% of national income and 28% of agricultural GDP in 2018-19. In the past six years, the livestock sector grew by 7.9% (at constant prices), while crop cultivation grew by 2%. Our field studies show that in rural households that have livestock, women are always engaged in animal husbandry. Feather International Day of Rural Women (October 15)We need to recognize the role of women in livestock rearing and involve women in all aspects of livestock development, be it breeding, veterinary care, extension services, training or access to credit and markets.
It is widely recognized that the majority of women workers (72%) in rural areas are engaged in agricultural activities. However, with the exception of participation in dairy cooperatives, particularly in milk marketing, the role of women in the livestock economy is not widely known or discussed. Dairy cooperatives had five million women members in 2015-16, and this increased to 5.4 million in 2020-21. Women accounted for 31% of all members of dairy producers’ cooperatives in 2020-21. The number of women dairy cooperatives in India increased from 18,954 in 2012 to 32,092 in 2015-16.
issues with data collection
Traditional labor force surveys fail to accurately record women’s livestock-rearing work for a number of reasons. Two significant, of the many problems in data collection, are the sporadic nature of short-term work done throughout the day and often within the home, and women’s own responses. A one-time use survey in a village in Karnataka revealed that a poor farmer woman started her day by collecting cow dung from a cow shed for 10 minutes (5.15 am to 5.25 pm). She was engaged in some preliminary cooking tasks for some time. After a while he milked the cow for 25 minutes, and washed and cleaned the shed for about 30 minutes. After completing other household chores, she went to work on a construction site. She took two cows along and tied them to graze near the work place. When she returned home in the evening, she again milked and fed the animals, which took about 40 minutes. After dinner, he fed the animals for the last time during the day. This woman spent about 3.5 hours on livestock-related tasks, all combined with household duties. Given this pattern of work, the woman herself may not report “livestock farming” as an economic activity.
One way to adjust official figures for this error is to calculate the enhanced work participation rate. In other words, in addition to reporting themselves as women engaged in economic activity, this estimate includes women who report themselves as “engaged in domestic duty” or care work for the most part of the year. did, but spent time on specific activities like kitchen gardening. , domestic dairy/poultry, paddy bran, etc.
an underestimate
For example, according to estimates based on the 2011-12 Employment and Unemployment Survey, 12 million rural women were engaged in livestock rearing. However, with the enhanced definition, we estimated that around 49 million rural women were engaged in livestock rearing. In short, women actually engaged in the livestock economy were four times the official estimate and a larger proportion of the rural population. Data from India’s first National Time Use Survey in 2019 corroborates this conclusion. By recording all activities (whether cooking or working in the fields) in the last 24 hours, 11% of rural women or 48 million women were engaged in animal husbandry.
Surveys of villages in Karnataka conducted by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies show that every household has a milch animal, with a woman spending at least two hours a day on animal husbandry. This ranged in some cases from seven to eight hours depending on other factors such as the number and type of animals, and the season (in weak seasons, when forage was not readily available, more time was spent on grazing). In addition, livestock rearing was the occupation of older, less educated, women in the village.
The 2013 National Livestock Policy (NLP), which aims to increase livestock production and productivity in a sustainable manner, rightly states that about 70% of the labor for the livestock sector comes from women. One of the goals of this policy was women empowerment. The National Livestock Mission (NLM) of 2014-15 was launched for the development of the livestock sector, with a focus on availability of fodder and fodder, providing extension services and better flow of credit to livestock farmers. However, NLM does not propose any scheme or program specific to women cattle rearers. The policy proposes that the state government allocate 30% of the funds from centrally sponsored schemes for women. There is no logic for 30% quota.
main problems
The problem is clearly that women livestock farmers are not visible to policy makers, and one reason for this is the lack of gender-separated data, as shown here.
First, recent employment surveys such as the Periodic Labor Force Survey fail to collect data on the specific activities of individuals primarily engaged in household duties. So, the low count of women in the livestock economy continues.
Second, access to extension services to women pastoralists is scarce. According to official reports, 80,000 cattle ranchers were trained across the country in 2021, but we do not know how many women farmers were. In our village surveys, only a few women in each village reported receiving any information from extension workers. Women wanted information but wanted it closer to home and sometimes when they were free.
Third, in our village surveys, women from poor families found it difficult to get loans to buy livestock, to be given to banks without any collateral. Around 15 lakh new Kisan Credit Cards (KCCs) were provided to livestock farmers under the KCC scheme during 2020-22. It is not known how many of these women were farmers.
Fourth, the female pastoralists lacked technical knowledge on animal selection (breeding) and veterinary care. According to our village surveys, men always performed these specific tasks and took animals for artificial insemination.
Fifth, our village studies showed that women were not aware of the structure and functions of dairy boards and that men took decisions only in women’s dairy cooperatives. Moreover, the voices of women belonging to the landless or poor peasant Scheduled Caste families were rarely heard.
Women’s labor is important to the livestock economy. It follows that women should be included in decision making and at every stage of development of the livestock sector. Today she remains invisible due to the absence of a female pastoralist in official statistics. It should be fixed.
Madhura Swaminathan is Professor and Head of the Economic Analysis Unit at the Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore. Vijayamba R. Senior Research Fellow at Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore