Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

From sharecropping to crop-rent: women farmers changing agricultural production relations in rural South Asia

  • Published:
Agriculture and Human Values Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper explores changing production relations in agriculture in context of increasingly widespread and longer-duration male outmigration, as against previous, short-duration and seasonal migration. It investigates how de facto women-heads of households (WHHs) are changing a resilient crop-sharing system in absence of adequate access to productive assets, formal training or experience in farming, and while contributing labour to farming and coping with gendered demands on their time. Based on qualitative inquiry in one of the poorest parts of South Asia, the Eastern Gangetic Plains, the paper shows that a section of WHHs are replacing sharecropping arrangements with fixed-value rental arrangements that resemble commercial contracts. The paper ends with a discussion on the implications of this emerging development.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. I am using the term ‘women’ whilst being mindful of the class, caste and ethnic diversities within this category in India.

  2. Census of India. See http://censusindia.gov.in/ accessed on 8th July, 2015.

  3. ‘Bhagchash’ is sharecropping, bhagchashi is the sharecropper in Bangla and Maithili languages used in the region.

  4. Sharecropping in this part of India has been an extremely contentious socio-political issue, giving rise to left-supported political movements and the renowned ‘Operation Barga’ in West Bengal, in which sharecroppers were registered. This paper does not delve into that literature.

  5. The survey was sponsored by the Australian Council for International Agricultural Development (ACIAR) and managed by CIMMYT’s South Asia office in Kathmandu. The Indian Council Agricultural research (ICAR) Patna office, faculty members of Rajendra Agricultural University and Bihar Agricultural University in Bihar, and Uttarbanga Krishi Viswabidyalaya in West Bengal, and three non-governmental organisations: Sakhi in Madhubani district of Bihar, Anwesha in Cooch Behar and the Institute of Development Effectiveness in Nepal were involved in assisting me to administer the survey instrument within their respective regions. The full technical report is available on the ACIAR website as: Lahiri-Dutt (2014). Experiencing and coping with change: Women-headed households in the Eastern Gangetic Plains. ACIAR Technical Reports No. 83. Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research: Canberra.

  6. This study exclusively concerns women heads of households rather than the effects of agricultural commercialisation on men in comparison to women generally.

  7. ACIAR Scoping Study Team. 2011. Economic, Social and Agricultural Conditions of Eastern Gangetic Plains, Internal Document, New Delhi and Canberra: ACIAR, 3.

  8. Survey data from these districts were not considered in data analysis.

  9. When a survey enumerator asks rural women about their daily activities, many are likely to reply that working at ‘the home’ is their primary responsibility, creating the potential for underestimation in assessing numbers.

  10. Experts also recommend comprehensive ‘time-use surveys’ to obtain a more complete picture of how women and men spend their time in rural areas. It must be borne in mind that the data generated from such surveys are specific to a context reflecting the varying nature of farm duties in different agricultural systems, and are not comparable across those countries. Generally, it is believed that over 75 per cent of the daily time of a rural woman is spent on farming-related activities, including caring for livestock and collecting water.

  11. Official data in India such as the Census made it difficult to identify women-headed households until recently; it is only in the latest census that such households have come to closer attention (see for example, reports highlighting the findings of 2011 Census data by Chandramouli 2011).

  12. A related question that is often asked is: ‘How much of the global agricultural produce comes from women?’ A conservative estimate by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2010 suggests that in the present day, female farmers produce 50 per cent of all food crops. Again, this information has turned into what Cheryl Doss on her (2010) report for FAO call a ‘stylized fact’, in the nature of a metaphor that ‘women hold up half the sky’. She shows that the origin of the claim, that women produce 60–80 per cent of the food in developing countries, is shrouded in myth and overlooks the complementary and overlapping roles that women and men play in agriculture.

  13. This category includes those who provide their land on informal share-cropping arrangements. Note that there are major overlaps within these categories for the nature of WHHs’ complex involvements in farming, their poor self-identification as farmers and the attendant difficulties in running a multi-district, large sample survey of this nature.

  14. In EGP, women earn ~INR100/- per day, with men earning 150 to 160/- (even 200/- if the individual is young and strong). The cash received is in addition to breakfast and lunch.

  15. One maund is roughly 40 kilograms. Maund is a traditional measure often used in rural areas in EGP.

  16. All names have been changed.

  17. One katha is one-twentieth of a bigha. The exact size of a bigha varies through the EGP region.

Abbreviations

ACIAR:

Australian Council for International Agricultural Development

EGP:

Eastern Gangetic Plains

FAO:

Food and Agriculture Organisation

FGD:

Focus group discussions

ILO:

International Labour Organisation

VDC:

Village Development Council

WHH:

Women heads of households

References

  • Agarwal, B. 2014. Food sovereignty, food security and democratic choice: Critical contradictions, difficult conciliations. Journal of Peasant Studies 41(6): 1247–1268.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Banerjee, N. 2008. How real is the bogey of feminization? In Women’s studies in India: A reader, ed. M.E. John, 202–210. New Delhi: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buvinic, M., and G. R. Gupta. 1997. Female-headed households and female-maintained families: Are they worth targeting to reduce poverty in developing countries? Economic Development and Cultural Change 45(2): 259–280.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Byres, T. J. 1983. Historical perspectives on sharecropping. In Sharecropping and sharecroppers, ed. T.J. Byres, 1–50. London: Frank Cass Limited.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chandramouli, C. 2011. Houses, household amenities & assets among female headed households: Highlights from Census 2011. http://www.docstoc.com/docs/144446808/HOUSESHOUSEHOLD-AMENITIES-and-ASSETS-AMONG-FEMALE-HEADEDHOUSEHOLDS. Accessed 6 Feb 2014.

  • Chant, S. 2009. Women-headed households: Poorest of the poor? Perspectives from Mexico, Costa Rica and the Philippines. Institute of Development Studies Bulletin 28(26): 26–48.

  • Deere, C. D. 2009. ‘The feminization of agriculture? Economic restructuring in rural Latin America. In The gendered impacts of liberalization: Towards embedded liberalism?, ed. S. Razavi, 99–127. London, New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deninger, K. S. Jin and V. Yadav. 2012. Does sharecropping affect productivity and long term investment? Evidence from West Bengal, World Bank Policy Paper. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. http://dx.doi.org.virtual.anu.edu.au/10.1596/1813-9450-6293. Accessed on 7 July 2015.

  • Dixon, R. B. 1982. Women in agriculture: Counting the labour force in developing countries. Population and Development Review 8(3): 539–566.

  • Doka, M. and M. Monimart 2004. Women’s access to land: The de-feminisation of agriculture in Southern Niger? Issue Paper, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), No. 128. London: IIED.

  • Doss, C and the State of Food and Agriculture Team. 2011. The role of women in agriculture, ESA Working Paper No. 11-02, Agricultural Development Economics Division, New York: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

  • Garikipati, S. 2009. Landless but not assetless: Female agricultural labour on the road to better status, evidence from India. Journal of Peasant Studies 36(3): 517–545.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gartaula, H. N., A. Niehof, and L. Visser. 2010. Feminisation of agriculture as an effect of male outmigration: Unexpected outcomes from Jhapa district, Nepal. The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences 3(2): 1833–1882.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ghosh, B. 2014. Vulnerability, forced migration and trafficking in children and women: A field view from the plantation industry in West Bengal. Economic and Political Weekly XLIX(26 & 27): 58–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jodhka, S. 2014. Emergent ruralities: Revisiting village life and agrarian change in Haryana. Economic and Political Weekly XLIX(26 & 27): 5–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelkar, G. 2010. The feminization of agriculture in Asia: Implications for women’s agency and productivity, Report prepared for UNIFEM South Asia. New Delhi: UNIFEM. http://www.agnet.org/htmlarea_file/library/20110725164020/eb594.pdf. Accessed 10 Jan 2012.

  • Krishnaraj, M., and A. Shah. 2004. A background note prepared for the working group on gender and agriculture. New Delhi: The Planning Commission of India.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lahiri-Dutt K. 2014. Experiencing and coping with change: Women-headed households in the Eastern Gangetic Plains. ACIAR Technical Reports No. 83. Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research: Canberra.

  • Lastarria-Cornhiel, S. 2006. Feminization of agriculture: Trends and driving forces. RIMISP (Latin American Center for Rural Development): Santiago.

  • Lingam, L. 1994. Women-headed households—coping with caste, class and gender hierarchies. Economic and Political Weekly 39(12): 699–704.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lokshin, M., and E. Glinskaya. 2009. The effect of male migration on employment patterns of women in Nepal. World Bank Economic Review 23(3): 481–507.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maharajan, A., S. Bauer, and B. Knerr. 2012. Do rural women who stay behind benefit from male outmigration? Gender, Technology and Development 16(1): 95–123.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maxwell, J. 1997. Designing a qualitative study. In Handbook of applied social research methods, ed. L. Bickman, and D.J. Rog, 69–100. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mishra, S., and D. Narasimha Reddy. 2011. Persistence of crisis in Indian Agriculture: Need for technological and institutional alternatives. In India development report 2011, ed. D.M. Nachane, 101–129. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mohanty, N. R. 2005. Hunger, under-nutrition and food security in India. India Working Paper 32. Oxford: Chronic Poverty Research Centre, Oxford University.

  • Naved, R. T., N. N. Khan, H. Rahman, and K. L. Ali. 2011. A rapid assessment of gender in agriculture in Bangladesh. Dhaka: ICDDR.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pearce, R. 1983. Sharecropping: Towards a Marxist view. In Sharecropping and sharecroppers, ed. T.J. Byres, 40–56. Totowa: Frank Cass London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramachandran, N. 2006. Women and food security in South Asia: Current issues and emerging concerns, United Nations University and World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER). https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/rp2006-131.pdf. Accessed 22 Nov 2015.

  • Rao, Nitya. 2012. Male ‘providers’ and female ‘housewifes’: A gendered co-performance in rural North India. Development and Change 43(5): 1025–1048.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Razavi, S. 2009. Engendering the political economy of agrarian change. The Journal of Peasant Studies 36(1): 197–226.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Razavi, S. 2002. Shifting burdens: Gender and agrarian change under neoliberalism. Bloomfield: Kumarian Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reddy, D. N., and S. Mishra. 2009. Agriculture in the reforms regime. In Agrarian crisis in India, ed. D.N. Reddy, and S. Mishra, 3–43. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shah, A. 2012. Priority changes for strengthening women’s role as producers, processors and providers of food and nutrition, IDS Bulletin, Special Issue on Standing on the threshold: Food justice in India 43:51, 40–49.

  • Sharma, S. D. and Mishra. 2010. Poverty in rural India: Issues and perspectives, Indian Journal of Public Administration, 56(1): 18–36.

  • Shrestha, N., and D. Conway. 2001. The shadow life of a migrant’s wife. In Aspects of migration and mobility in Nepal, ed. S. van der Heide, and T. Hoffman, 153–178. Ratna Pustak Bhandar: Kathmandu.

    Google Scholar 

  • Singh. P., and A. Lal. 2013. From farm to fork: Where are the women farmers?, Manushi: Forum for Women’s Rights and Democratic Solutions, 1–22. http://www.manushi.in/articles.php?articleId=1727. Accessed 15 Oct 2013.

  • Singh, S., and S. Bhogal. 2014. Punjab’s small peasantry: Thriving or deteriorating. Economic and Political Weekly XLIX(26 & 27): 95–100.

    Google Scholar 

  • Song, Y. D., Q. Sun, and J. Jiggins. 2009. Feminization of agriculture in rapid changing rural China: Policy implication and alternatives for an equitable growth and sustainable development. Paper presented at the FAO–IFAD–ILO Workshop on Gaps, trends and current research in gender dimensions of agricultural and rural employment: Differentiated pathways out of poverty, Rome, 31 March–2 April, 2009. http://www.faoilo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/fao_ilo/pdf/Papers/24_March/Song_et_al._-_formatted.pdf.. Accessed 6 Feb 2014.

  • Swaminathan, M. S. 1995. The Sons of the Soil, The Hindu, 19 April.

  • Teddlie, C., and F. Yu. 2007. Mixed methods sampling: A typology with examples. Journal of Mixed Methods Research 1(1): 77–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Toyota, M., B. Yeoh, and L. Nguyen. 2007. Introduction: Bringing the ‘left behind’ back into view in Asia, A framework for understanding the ‘migration-left behind nexus’. Population, Space and Place 13: 157–161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vasavi, A. R. 2012. Shadow spaces: Suicides and the predicament of rural India. Gurgaon: Three Essays Collective.

    Google Scholar 

  • Velayudhan, M. 2009. Women’s land rights in India: Struggles and diverse contexts. Economic and Political Weekly XLIV(44): 74–79.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vepa, S. 2004. Feminization of agriculture and marginalization of their economic stake. Economic and Political Weekly XL(25): 111–135.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vlassoff, C. 2013. Gender equality and inequality in rural India: Blessed with a son. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Whitehead, A. 2009. The gendered impacts of liberalisation policies on african agricultural economies and rural livelihoods. Geneva: UNRISD.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This paper forms one part of the first author’s ongoing research into the implications of feminisation of agriculture in South Asia through the Australian Research Council-funded Discovery Project 140101682: Farmers of the Future: Challenges of feminised agriculture in India. She thanks the ARC for this funding. She also thanks the two anonymous reviewers, Dr Zakaria Siddiqui for his assistance with the data, and Mr Mohanraj Adhikari for his assistance in the field.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, Liversidge Road, Acton, ACT, 2601, Australia

    Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt & Mohanraj Adhikari

Authors
  1. Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Mohanraj Adhikari
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 2.

Table 2 Details of villages surveyed
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Lahiri-Dutt, K., Adhikari, M. From sharecropping to crop-rent: women farmers changing agricultural production relations in rural South Asia. Agric Hum Values 33, 997–1010 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-015-9666-z

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-015-9666-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation