The Indian rural landscape is rapidly changing with new livelihood portfolios emerging through increasing migration as well as employment in the non-farm sector. Evidence shows that remittances lead to increase in income and consumption, and contribute to poverty reduction. They could also positively impact agricultural productivity and rural development.
However, this is not always guaranteed. Migration is a complex phenomenon and the outcomes depend on the type of households and the type of migration. It could just be ‘coping migration’, where households are able to smooth consumption and manage risk, and ‘accumulative migration’ which allows for the accumulation of assets, savings, and investments.
We recently conducted a study in Odisha, to understand the dynamics of migration and zoomed into the gender dimensions of it. We observed that men are migrating out of rural areas due to low agricultural productivity and incomes, lack of diversification of agriculture, lack of adequate employment opportunities throughout the year, limited diversification of livelihood portfolios leading to low incomes.
It is interesting to understand who migrates - migration rates increase as incomes increase and fall after a certain threshold. So, the poorest and the richest households experience less migration than the others. The former, because they do not have the wherewithal or networks to facilitate migration and the latter, because they do not need to migrate as their pastures are green enough. Data also reveals that remittances received by migrant households are low, with total household incomes lower than that of non-migrant households. Most of them face a debt burden and have no savings. So, it is clear that this is not accumulative migration.
Even though women in these households spend most of their time on agriculture, most consider it their secondary activity. Small land-holdings make agriculture a subsistence enterprise just enough to feed the household. Women-headed households have the lowest incomes and low productivity because of lack of knowledge and skills for farm management, limited access to technologies and training opportunities, lack of access to ‘women-friendly’ machinery and equipment and access to institutional credit, and lack of information to make production and marketing decisions.
These households also have less household labour availability and accessing labour is difficult and expensive for these women. The remittance income is often inadequate to offset the loss of family labour. Wage rates are also lower for women compared to men. Most of them have bank accounts, but might have to depend on others to operate them due to lack of digital skills/devices and difficult transportation.
Lack of good connectivity is a major challenge they face in accessing markets and therefore, depend on middlemen and resort to distress sales. In addition, they face enormous time poverty due to the dual responsibilities of managing farms and household alone taking care of all the unpaid care work. They also face health issues due to the exposure to chemicals and enormous drudgery.
A comprehensive policy and programmes focused on women in migrant farming households would be very helpful in providing a level playing field for these women and increasing their incomes and empowerment. It is necessary to devise tailored strategies to make inputs available timely to women with limited mobility and labour to improve agricultural productivity, diversification and profitability of women-managed farms. Climate information services to make informed decisions, digital literacy and skills as well as promotion of digital innovations to access markets and information are imperative too.
It is also necessary to develop a cadre of community-based women and youth technical and business advisors who are easily accessible to these women farmers while reviewing conditions for leasing in land and insurance provision for tenant women farmers.
Similarly, targeted and need-based training and skill development programmes to enhance agricultural skills, going beyond production and focusing on value addition and processing must be the priority. Promoting non-land based enterprise, encouragement to entrepreneurship, market linkages, mentorship and coaching will go a long way in achieving the desired goals.
(Dr Ranjitha PuskurDr Ranjitha Puskur is Principal Scientist, Gender and Livelihoods, International Rice Research Institute & Module Leader, Evidence, CGIAR GENDER Platform)
