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Impact of Globalization on Rural and Tribal Women workers inAgricultural Sector in India
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By - Ruby Ojha
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&Rekha Talmaki
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1.
Introduction
Agriculture is currently undergoing a transformation as a result of globalization.Referring to developments in the rural economy leading to impoverishment, the NationalCommission on Farmers (NCF) observed that ‘Agriculture and the rural economy borethe brunt of neo-liberal policies of removal of all quantitative restrictions on imports,steep lowering of import duties on agricultural produce, slashing of import subsidies,collapse of institutional credit, near absence of public investment, reduction in ruraldevelopment expenditures, weakening of the public distribution system and decline inallocations for agricultural research and extension (National Commission on Farmers,2006).’ The worst hit amongst the impoverished are the agricultural workers and therural poor. There has been a consistent decline in the growth of agricultural sector since1990. It was 4 % per annum in 1980s and now it has declined to less than 2%. Elasticityof employment also has declined in this sector and during 1993-94 to 1999-2000 jobs inthe farm sector have grew only at 0.03%. Because of these low returns in agriculture,
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Paper to be presented in National Seminar on
Gender & Development in World of Work and Health - with Focus on Womenin the Agrarian Sector,
to be held on
 
19-20 November, 2010 at Bhimtal (Uttrakhand), Organised by: Women Work & HealthInitiative (WWHI), New Delhi In collaboration with Kumaon University (Dept. of Bio-Technology) & SNDT Women’s University,Church gate, Mumbai.
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Associate Professor, Department of Economics, PGSR, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai
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Senior faculty in SNDT College of Arts & SCB College of Commerce & Economics for Women, Mumbai affiliated to SNDTWomen’s University, Mumbai
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more men are moving out of agriculture putting the future of this sector more than ever in the hands of women.
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Impact on women workers in agriculture
Agriculture is the main employer of women informal workers. 75% of the total femaleworkforce and 85% of rural women are employed in agriculture as wage workers or workers on own/contracted household farms. But, even with increasing feminization of agriculture, few women have direct access to agricultural land affecting their ability tooptimize agricultural productivity. With increasing feminization of agriculture,casualization of workforce also has increased which has deteriorated the quality of employment. After globalization modern day agriculture has become technologysensitive but the poor illiterate farm women have very little or no access to scientificadvancement and technology to achieve higher productivity, higher profits and moreincome for their family.Women are the backbone of agricultural workforce all over the world. They do the mosttedious and back-breaking tasks in agriculture. Despite the fact that women contributemore labour to agriculture than men, they get fewer wages than men and land remainsalmost solely in male hands. Although women constitute two-thirds of the agriculturework force, they own less than one-tenth of the agricultural lands. Therefore, very fewgovernment schemes include landless women as beneficiaries.A study (Alka Parikh, Sarthi Acharya, Maitreyi, Krishnaraj, 2004) in Maharashtra’sagriculture, has the proposition of women working as agricultural labourers. The datasuggest that more than half of women factors were engaged in other capacity of 
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labourers in agriculture in both 1991 and 2001. In contrast, this proportion is less bymore than 10 percent in the case of male workers; they are principally cultivators (i.e.own account workers). In the context of livelihood, to work as an agricultural labourer fetches the least income, as is repeatedly seen from NSS data. Thus women do seemto be engaged in less remunerative activities compared to men.An attempt was made in the above mentioned study to predict possible impacts of current and proposed government policies. It was found that most policies described inthe plans and budgets of agriculture and allied sectors do not give positive boosts towomen workers (creating special opportunities for women, designing gender sensitivepolicies that ensure equitable infra-household distribution of benefits etc). Thus, surely,women are being left behind in these policies. The authors found that women arecompletely absent from the framework of policy makers.Even in Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) wage rates are discriminating, verymeager and are calculated on piece rate basis. For example, the wage for digging a onecubic meter hole is only around Rs.19/-. A couple generally does this work. The mandigs and woman takes the mud and throws it elsewhere. But only one person is paid for this job. The man gets paid; the women’s labour is free. This practice needs to beimmediately rectified
(Dhawale, Mariam, 2006)
.Even otherwise, unequal wages for men and women in agriculture is a regular featureeverywhere. As the farmers cannot reduce the cost of other inputs, they are resorting toreducing the cost of labour component in cultivation. They are pressurizing the
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