NEW DELHI: Green Revolution marginalises women farmers pushing them to the fringes, according to a paper by Centre for Social Justice and the Revitalizing Rainfed Agricultural Network.
This is primarily because the Green Revolution tends to be dismissive of women’s contributions to agriculture, the paper pointed out.
Green Revolution leads to the dismantling of the local systems to which women typically have access prior to this, exclusion of women from gaining updated knowledge on the practices of the Green Revolution and the exclusion of state support as it is typically linked to the ownership of land which is most commonly held by men, the study stated.
The paper mentioned case studies of practices from Chhattisgarh, Anantapuramu in Andhra Pradesh, Pandharkawada and Yavatmal in Maharashtra to document how some farm practices are led by women, especially for certain kinds of crops.
Prior to the Green Revolution, decisions of seed selection, pre-processing and seed storage were exclusively taken by women. This gave them the opportunity to share information and knowledge among women farmers. “Globalisation and Green Revolution with its penchant for uniformity and scale wiped out much of this diversity — increasing risks,” the report said.
In market-driven agriculture, the crisis deepens with the existing asymmetries between men and women farmers, said Kavita Kuruganti, convener, Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture.
“Women get marginalised in the Green Revolution paradigm of agriculture... Women are also more vulnerable to chemical agriculture and men for a number of biological reasons,” she said. “Prior to the green revolution, there were small and family farmers... decision-making was a joint process in the family or community. With the green revolution, the thrust was of cash crops and the driving force in the market. This changes the fabric of agriculture,” said Ramesh Sharma, national convener, Ekta Parishad — an organisation engaged in land rights’ reforms.