Feminisation of agriculture sector in Nepal
Women’s role in agriculture sector is in gradual transformation all across the globe, and Nepal is no exception.
By Yamuna Ghale
Nepalese agriculture is a feminised sector since a long time. A decade long armed conflict of mid 1990’s, and the increasing rate of out migration of men from remote areas led feminisation of agriculture sector in a more rampant trend. In Nepal, sixty eight percent of the population still adopt agriculture as their livelihoods options. Out of the total labour force, women account about seventy percent of it. However, women have never been recognised as an autonomous farmer as they do not possess legal entitlement over means of production, especially land. In the Nepalese context, land is the prime factor, which determines the social position of an individual and also impacts on productivity of the agriculture sector at large. According to the data of Central Bureau of Statistics, only 8.1 percent women have legal ownership over land. It is widely witnessed and perceived that women in majority of the cases are remained as producers, enjoying the limited form of user’s rights. In the context of out migration of men folks, women become de jure household head and bound to fulfil men’s responsibility as well. The increasing trend of commercialisation in agriculture, interface with the effect of climate change and global food crisis has posed further threat to household level food security and agriculture sector in Nepal. However, women are still not recognised as independent and autonomous farmers by the social system and legal procedures and the government has yet to adopt measures to address the challenges brought about by feminization of agriculture sector.
Conceptualisation and formal recognition of women’s role in agriculture sector took more than 30 years since the inception of the first periodic development plan in the 1950’s. Concrete initiative of women’s inclusion was conceptualized from the 6th periodic plan (1980-1985) only. The 7th periodic plan recognized the need to have women focused program and introduced a minimum standard for at least ten percent of women participation in agriculture related trainings. The 8th plan then focused on expanding women’s participation in farmer’s groups, technical trainings, and access to credit. Within the 8th plan, Women Farmer Development Division was established within the Ministry of Agriculture. From the 9th plan onward, gender role and its importance were recognized and programs were adopted towards gender mainstreaming. The division was expanded and renamed as Gender Equity and Environment Division, with expanded mandate to link with biodiversity related programs as well. Within the 8th plan period, five years strategic plan for women farmer’s development was prepared. As a result, the 9th periodic plan brought an additional agenda of cooperatives development and preparing gender responsive plans and budgets. Within this period, women participation was mandated at least for 35 percent in all agriculture related programs. The 10th plan also known as Poverty reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) for Nepal adopted a holistic approach of poverty reduction of which greater social and economic inclusion of men and women through mainstream and targeted programs as one of its four pillars. This indicates some gradual efforts in understanding and mainstreaming of women and gender issues in agriculture sector development. However, the policies and programmes always been funded inadequately. The situation of programme run under the ‘zero’ budget in FY 2059/60 of gender equity and environment division within the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives depicts the need to prioritise and ensure adequate financing.
Feminisation has largely affected the productivity and negatively impacted on household food security. The Millennium Development Goal report, 2005 indicated that female-headed households has higher incidence of poverty and food insecurity. The proportion of females in agriculture has been increasing steadily from 37% in 1981 to 45% in 1991 and 49 in 2001 and men’s share in agriculture is seen decreasing. However, there are no substantial efforts from the government and non-government sectors to adopt policies and programmes to respond the contemporary challenges brought by feminisation of agriculture sector. Women’s subordination position and low investment in agriculture sector are substantiated by the persistent denial of access to means of production and other services such as credit, information, market, participation and representation in decision making positions of policy making and service providing structures and formal as well as informal education systems. Likewise, one of the major constraints in enhancing women’s leadership is under-recognition and non-acceptance of women leadership. Of the seventy percent women engaged in agriculture sector, almost 90 percent of women producers have physical access to land as users but do not have the decision making power regarding what to grow, which land to allocate for which crops or what share of foods to be allocated for family consumption and access to other means of production. Inadequate support system and lack of conducive environment for women leadership can be considered as a manifestation of feudal mindset widely existed throughout the system and practices. It therefore, requires combined efforts to ensure social, political and economic rights of women and opting pragmatic strategies.
Being a member of the World Trade Organisation and association with different regional trade agreements has brought different potentials and challenges ahead of Nepal. The increasing trend of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation of resources and knowledge is a new challenge including agriculture sector development. Nepal had made commitments to the WTO to develop, reform and/or amend at least 42 policies and regulations, of which certain policies are directly or indirectly related to agriculture production, processing, and marketing system. Since, many of the producers in the remote areas are the net consumers as well; there is an urgent need to protect farmer’s rights and consumer rights at once. It is even more vital to take in to consideration of the consumer rights in the market process where the interest of profit oriented companies are getting primacy over production and marketing chain. Likewise, the increasing trend of globalisation and liberalisation has potential to limit farmer’s choice and affordability. It could thus create more vulnerability and food insecurity when the production and market force gets mismatched. Most often, trade and financial imbalances, global forces such as international trade regulations and emerging issues like climate change can have direct impact on the consumers. On the macro level, the policy regulations and development priorities of resource poor governments and weaker economies are most often guided by the technical and financial support of international financial institutions (IFIs). In this process, proper assessment of micro-situation and allowing adequate policy space for poor and small farmers specially women remains as one of the challenges. On the rise of food crisis worldwide, the IFIs have published list of do’s and don’ts that determines policy measures of developing countries. Under the do’s, the IFIs have urged developing countries to scale up social safety nets, eliminate tariffs on key food items and temporary use of subsidies on food items vital to poor and inputs for poor farmers such as fertilizers. Likewise, the don’t aspect deals with export and price controls and general subsidies. All these measures in one way or other are linked with production and value chain process and impact on production process and market dynamics. Such process demands adequate technical and financial resources to respond the immediate needs without undermining the potential of sustainable use of resources and autonomy of producers and consumers. The worldwide soaring food prices at present is also a manifestation of imbalance between the investment priorities, resource management and sharing of benefits. According to the World Bank estimates, the global food prices have risen 83 percent over the last three years, due to increasing use of crops in bio-fuels, relative inelasticity of supply and low speculative investments and the food prices will rise by 50 percent by 2030. Likewise, the food prices surveyed in nine remote districts of Nepal evidenced the increase of food price as much as 30-40 percent compared to the same period of study in June, 2007. Therefore, the multi-functionality of agriculture sector has to be considered as a prime factor to determine the food security and socio-economic transformation of the country.
Women’s role in agriculture sector is in gradual transformation all across the globe. In Nepal, average achievement of women’s participation and representation in agriculture development by the end of the 9th plan is recorded at 38-40 percent. Roster of best women entrepreneurs prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives shows that there are 14 to 30 women led enterprises functioning in different districts. Likewise, different initiatives at farmer’s organizations and the national federation of cooperatives of Nepal have adopted some innovative approaches to promote women leadership. Some of the major policies and programs in agriculture sector have provisioned gender specific objectives such as; a) Agriculture Perspective Plan (2052)-improve women participation to enhance agricultural productivity; b) National Agricultural policy (2061)-fifty percent involvement and participation of women in all possible programs; c) Article 20 of Interim Constitution (2063)-fundamental rights: no discrimination based on gender and equal rights to son and daughters on ancestral property; d) Agro-business Promotion Policy (2063)-special programme to support enterprises established and promoted by women, dalits, poor, etc. It shows gradual recognition and participation of women in agriculture sector development. Therefore, the need to deal with different constraints faced by women due to limited access to financial resources, knowledge and skills to deal with market, weak family support system and inadequate conducive policy provisions is of utmost important.
Nepal is in a new mode of political, social and economic transformation. The Interim Constitution of Nepal has conceptualized the importance of food sovereignty. Food sovereignty deals with local autonomy, national primacy and control of production process by the local producers without compromising local potentials. Likewise, the scientific land reform and management is another new step in agriculture sector transformation. The budget of FY 2065/66 has acknowledged the importance of women’s contribution in agriculture sector development and economic transformation. There is an increased allocation of resources in agriculture sector i.e. Rs 5.91 billion (69.30 percent higher than the previous fiscal year) in the current fiscal year. Furthermore, assurance of promoting food sovereignty and program on scientific land reform and management, cooperative farming, investment in research and development, standardization of agriculture, livestock and forestry education, self-employment of youth in agriculture sector, agro-based tourism and establishing ten seed storages, herb processing centre, non-timber forest product based micro-enterprises, climate change resource centers and adopting gender budgeting procedures are some of the crucial areas for potential transformation in agriculture sector. The budget has re-emphasized the need to transform agriculture sector from subsistence to commercialization and industrialization with continued subsidy program for 26 remote districts, promotion of gene banks, and pocket area program for high value crops. Likewise, women empowerment program on the highway corridors and social and economic transformation program are some of women specific plans and programs. With this thrust, the budget has expected to achieve agriculture growth at the rate of 4.5 percent. However, from the gender perspective in agriculture sector development, the major flaw remained in the budget is the mismatch between the vision and plans. In a nutshell, the programs are not adequately linked and the budget hardly touches upon the issues related with persistent structural hindrances to engender the development sectors in Nepal. The budget is silent over how to enhance women’s strategic positions through recognizing women as independent and autonomous farmers, ensuring women’s access to means of production, enhancing their leadership competence and creating acceptance, and improving women’s position in different structures of the government, non-government and private sectors. For example, the scientific land reform and management does not speak about ensuring equitable access of women on land, standardization of education system does not provision any incentives for female students, and lack of recognition of women leasehold farmer, tenant, haliya has structurally blocked them to stand as a rights holders, organise themselves, claim their rights and enjoy dignified life. Therefore, dealing with engendered agriculture sector development should be a priority of the government, civil society, development actors and private sectors. The agriculture sector has extensive potential to transform socio-political and economic status of each citizen and contribute in overall national development.
(Ms Ghale is a Food and Agriculture Policy Analyst. She can reached at: yamuna.ghale@sdc.net)
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