Rural women and agricultural development in India

Women are economically and socially empowered. They become a potent force for change. So they play a significant role in domestic and socio-economic life of the society. On the other hand agriculture is the back bone of Indian economy. Based on the 2012 data, India is to the fourth largest agricultural sector in the world. The rural women in India found that above 84% of them are depend on agriculture for maintaining their livelihood. It includes 33% of them are cultivators and remaining 47% women are agricultural labourers in the agricultural field. On that basis the roles are broken into 3 categorises like productive, reproductive and community roles. The productive role is performed both by men and women in economic activities. The reproductive role, which is based on household activities is exclusively done by women. Community role is often dominated by women and it is related to the welfare of the community. Women’s participation in agricultural fields is in different categories. They are found mostly 47% in tea plantation, 46.84% in cotton cultivation, 45.43% in oil seeds and 39.13% in vegetable production. While these crops require labour- intensive work, the work is considered quite unskilled. Women are probably found in the agricultural field on the basis of help. The reason behind that women engaged in agriculture are educational barrier, arrange marriage and caste system. Hence this study was initiate with the objectives of the role and importance of rural women in agricultural field and the bridging gap between men and women in access to resources, service, support and opportunities. On the other hand a lot of opportunities are available on the basis of government and non-government organization on which women can develop in agricultural sector and rural development. Consequently, availability of resources, gender equality to agricultural field, more policies and programmes has to given for successful agricultural development.