Virtual Congress of Women Farmers: Agriculture provides 57 per cent of India’s total employment and 73 per cent of India’'s total rural employment - Women constitute 73 per cent of the agricultural workforce

By Syed Akbar
Visakhapatnam:  With the Indian agriculture getting increasingly
feminised, the Central government has decided to launch a national virtual
congress of Mahila Kisans.


The first national virtual congress of Mahila Kisans farmers will be
opened officially on January 5 enabling women farmers, to begin with, in
five States to share agricultural knowledge and exchange on-field ideas
with their counterparts and scientists.


Women ryots from Moosapet in Addakal mandal (AP), Thiruvaiyaru (Tamil
Nadu), Koraput (Orissa), Waifad and Yavatmal (Maharashtra), and Pokran
(Rajasthan) will join the deliberations of the 95th Indian Science
Congress being held in this port city through a satellite link developed
by the Indian Space Research organization.


Together with Andhra University and ISRO, MS Swaminathan Research
Foundation has designed the virtual congress of mahila kisans to highlight
to the scientific community the urgent need for attending to the
technological requirements of women farmers. The women farmers hail from
arid, semi-arid, coastal, hill and irrigated areas and will discuss both
the opportunities and constraints facing women in agriculture.


Agriculture provides 57 per cent of India’s total employment and 73 per
cent of India’s total rural employment.


Women constitute 73 per cent of the agricultural workforce. “Agriculture is getting increasingly
feminised, in view of the growing migrations of men belonging to small and
marginal farmer families to urban areas, seeking alternative livelihoods,
because of the uneconomic nature of small scale farming particularly in
rain-fed areas lacking assured irrigation,” says Dr MS Swaminathan.


The future of Indian agriculture as well as food security will depend
largely on the skills, technological, financial and managerial empowerment
of rural and tribal women.