Stop ignoring women's role in agriculture

Gender barriers which undermine the productivity and well-being of rural women need to be better understood

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The incumbent government seems keen to boost agricultural productivity via adoption of the corporate farming model which may prove to be a windfall for a miniscule proportion of landowners who still own a vast amount of cultivable land, but it will do little for the majority of smallholders, or for those who are landless, and work either as sharecroppers, or as seasonal or daily waged labourers. Women also comprise a large proportion of this latter category of small or landless farmers.

The vital contribution of rural women remains largely unrecognised despite their significant contribution to the agrarian economy and to the national labour force. Despite their vital role in planting, weeding, harvesting and post-harvest activities, rural women continue being marginalised by their classification as contributing family workers.

Addressing the dearth of opportunities for women involved in agriculture needs urgent attention. Most rural women lack access to economic resources, agri-services and a range of other needed support services. Although women have a constitutional and religious right to inherit and own land, women in Pakistan continue being denied this economic right.

Most women hand over agricultural land inherited by them to their brothers, in lieu of contributions made by their brothers for their dowries, or in case they need their brothers' support if something were to happen to their husbands. Women's lack of land ownership in turn denies them access to collateral, which then makes it difficult for them to access credit.

Due to their restricted access to land as well as other needed farm inputs, the productivity of agricultural land owned or managed by women is unsurprisingly lower. Rural women do all this work in addition to shouldering a disproportionate burden of unpaid care and domestic work, which often includes rearing and grazing livestock, as well as collecting firewood and water for domestic consumption.

Yet, as more men migrate to urban centres, there is an increase in women's physical and managerial role in rural areas. However, not enough attention is being given to bolstering rural women's entrepreneurial skills, increasing their access to markets or providing them opportunities to undertake value addition. Conversely, violence against rural women is widespread.

Poverty, patriarchal mindsets and discriminatory sociocultural norms remain major challenge for women in farming communities. These women also often experience exploitation and sexual harassment perpetrated by labor supervisors, landlords or other men.

Socio-cultural barriers which undermine the productivity and well-being of rural women need to be better understood. Often rural development projects and programmes are imported from abroad, and not backed by appropriate empirical evidence, partially due to the lack of understanding of local gender dynamics as well as due to the unavailability of sex-disaggregated data.

While microfinance services, championed by many donor-driven projects, aim to benefit women involved in agriculture, these high-interest loans are focused on repayments, rather than trying to counter women's inability to exert greater control over productive decisions related to farming, which then undermines the capacity of such financial instruments to deliver real economic empowerment.

Women's participation in decision-making is grossly inadequate within various government entities meant to enable rural development. For instance, there are glaring gender gaps in extension and advisory services. The recent emphasis on climate adaptation and mitigation efforts is also not paying sufficient attention to gender issues.

Despite our official commitment to international treaties and conventions on gender equality, agricultural development policies remain unable to ensure gender equitable allocation of available resources. By not taking gender-related constraints into account, Pakistan's potential for agricultural productivity remains severely untapped, and women involved in agriculture continue being exploited.