This article first appeared in The Print on October 14, 2022
There was a time when women’s work in agriculture and animal husbandry was rarely counted. But according to the 2015-16 Agriculture Census, 11.72 per cent of the total operated area in the country was operated by female holders. Civil society assessments suggest that three-fourths of the full-time workers on farms are women because men move to cities for higher wages. Yet, there was little attention to empowering women in agriculture. The Rural Livelihood Mission initiated a Mahila Kisan Sashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP) in 2010-11 to ‘meet the specific needs of women farmers’.