SEWA collaborates with UK NGO for survey on skill training in rural women

Women shoulder most of the burden of India's agriculture sector, organised and high-level training eludes them, a primary reason for their hapless plight. This is revealed in a survey conducted in Ghana and India, by the London-based City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development (CSD), an independent research and development organisation in collaboration with Ahmedabad-based Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) and Kudumbashree, Kerala.

The study states that even though nearly 70 per cent of agricultural activities in India are carried out by women, it is the men folk who receive more and better training. Women, on the other hand, continue to remain at the bottom of the pyramid, confined to toiling in the fields. The report further highlights the need for appropriate training for women to ensure their productivity is not lowered because of a lack of it.

The report investigates the challenges women face in rural India.

These women are generally confined to being crop producers, without a say in the marketing and sales of the produce, relying upon their husbands for all financial aspects.

Despite their inclusive and vital contribution in agriculture, social and traditional norms relegate women to the role of child-bearers and homemakers. Coupled with dismal attention towards female education, women, unlike men, are devoid of the opportunities in training. Further, in agrarian economies heavily dependent on rains, women have little or no access to information on how to harness climatic changes to their benefit.

Trainers from SEWA, for example, found that poor rainfall and disease had an annual impact on productivity, and women are unable to cope with the seasonal nature of agriculture.

"Gujarat has 60 per cent rain-fed agriculture, which is very risky. Therefore, as an alternative, Gujarat has trained women in for agro-horticulture and animal husbandry and linked this to cooperative dairies run by women," the study says.