Planting rice saplings : Women farmers say hard work pays little

LAHORE: Women farm workers earn little despite gruelling work in hot and humid weather. Women transplanting rice saplings from nurseries to paddy fields told APP they hardly make Rs250-350 per day.

“From dawn to dusk we work standing in water under high temperatures for only Rs 250-350 for each of us,” said Nooran Changri, an elderly woman at a farm near world acclaimed rice production area of Narang Mandi.

Nasreen Mustfa another woman working at the farm told APP that the farm owners pay Rs1,800 per acre.

A group of 30-35 labourers mostly comprising men women and children of an extended family completes five to six acres of paddy transplantation in a day.

Women work in groups to share the load of old people and children.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 8^th, 2013.