"I am the first woman farmer in my block who started cultivation 15 years back," said 45 years old Aisha Begum Khatoon of Hridaypur village in Ambedkarnagar district. When she picked up the hoe for the first time, all the villagers rebuked her for treading on a man's domain. However, she decided to move forward, despite all odds, in order to look after her three daughters and one son.
Her husband lives in the city and takes no interest in agricultural activities. She owns a mere half acre land, but by resorting to organic farming, she is able to provide bread and better to her family of five members. She is now able to produce more than 20 varieties of crops, thanks to organic farming, and has become a role model for other women farmers of her area. Aisha Begum is grateful to the Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group (GEAG), for teaching her multi-layer cropping patterns, as well as time and space management.
Organic farming has provided her with a sustainable and economically viable model of agriculture production. She is also involved with Ekta Self Help Group and is the President of NARI Manch (this forum provides agriculture related information to women farmers). She has also been successful in creating more than 250 self help groups. Now her husband and her other family members take pride in her work. The Uttar Pradesh state agriculture Minister, Mr Chaudhari Laxmi Narayan, awarded her recently, during the Kisaan Sansad (Farmers' Parliament), in recognition of her excellent work in agriculture production.
Women farmers, despite being one of the biggest labor forces in India, are still fighting for their rights and identity. In India more than 84 per cent of women are involved in agricultural and/or allied activities. The agricultural sector provides employment to nearly 4/5 of the total women work force in India. One third of the agricultural laborers are women and 48 per cent of the women farmers are considered self employed in the agriculture sector.
According to a study conducted by GEAG, in Uttar Pradesh, 70 per cent of the state's population is involved in agricultural activities, making it a food surplus state. Women family members of about 80% of small and marginal farmers are involved in agricultural activities.Yet land holding rights of women farmers are a mere 6.5 per cent out of which a majority of them (81 per cent) got their land after the death of their husband, while only 19 per cent got it from their mother's side.
Neelam Prabhat, State Coordinator, Aaroh Abhiyaan, (a campaign for the empowerment of women farmers and their rights) working in GEAG, Uttar Pradesh said, "despite the tremendous contribution of women farmers in agricultural sector ,they have always been marginalized and denied their rights, not only by their family and society ,but by the policy makers as well. In general, they are treated as the assistants of male farmers."
She further said, " According to a recent report published by The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 40 million people have been pushed into hunger this year mostly due to soaring food prices, and the number of undernourished people worldwide is approaching the 1-billion mark. We can reduce this number if we empower women farmers and give them land holdings rights and joint bank accounts with their husbands."
The total number of hungry people has risen to 963 million this year, up from 923 million last year. FAO has cautioned, in the latest edition of its global hunger report, that this number could rise further as a result of the ongoing financial and economic crisis. In view of this we should strengthen production in a comprehensive way and should give the rights, long over due, to women farmers. In this way they will become an asset, not only to their families but also to society and the entire country.
PermalinkSubmitted by rakib ahmad on Sun, 28/03/2010 - 15:14
Thanks Amit, for the inspiring story of a marginalised woman farmer in UP. I am working at grassroots level in Assam. Separation of land patta in favour of daughters sh be completed by fathers in their lifetime. 2ndly' Issuing landholding certificates by circle officers/ tehsildars in favour of woman sh be legally made mandatory, within say, 100 days of application. Due to lack of land papers, woman farmers find it difficult to form acceptable groups for subsidy.
There is report of escalating tension in Chirang district following recovery of the bodies and there are reports of minority community protesting on the streets against the death of the three men. Additional reinforcements of police and para military forces have been rushed to the affected areas, where forces are already deployed since the outbreak of Bodo-Muslim clashes in July. Night curfew continues in Kokrajhar and Chirang, which are part of Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts, and Dhubri.
After a very brief silence, violence seems to have resurfaced in the BTAD areas. In a yet to string of murder and mayhem, five persons have been killed in Kokrajhar on Sunday. Three bullet riddled bodies were found in Chirang on Sunday. This is apart from two more bodies found in Kokrajhar district. One person is reported missing in the district.
According to Chirang Superintendent of Police, the three - father and his two sons - had left the camp for displaced persons at Kawatika village of Chirang district in the afternoon on Saturday and their bodies were found on Sunday.
The Assam government has set up a group of ministers to oversee and coordinating the relief and rehabilitation measures in the affected districts on his direction.
According to sources, the GoM comprises Revenue Minister Prithibi Majhi as chairperson and comprises Planning and Development Minister Tanka Bahadur Rai, Public Health and Engineering Minister Gautam Roy, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Nazrul Islam, Education and Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Environment and Forest Minister Rockybul Hussain and Transport Minister Chandan Brahma. Agriculture minister Nilamoni Sen Deka will be the Member Secretary of the GoM.
Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Sunday said that the government is taking steps to ensure best treatment for all inmates, particularly to children and mothers, residing in camps for displaced persons in the violence-hit BTAD areas and Dhubri district Gogoi directed Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma along with other senior officers of the health department to be present in the affected areas. Gogoi has also instructed that all medical and para-medical staff and medicine requirement may be refurbished by requisitioning from other districts.
The B Barooah College student who went missing on Saturday has been rescued in . New Jalpaiguri on Sunday.According to information, Saidul Islam approached RPF officials in NJ P alleging that a group of miscreants forcibly took away him by train when he was on the way to Panbazar on Saturday afternoon. The N JP . RPF officials then conveyed it to their Guwahati counterpart on Sunday wee hours which was later passed to his Kokrajhar-based parents. A team of Guwahati police is leaving for NJP to bring him back to the city.
A college student has been remaining traceless in Guwahati from Saturday. Identified as Saidul Islam, first year degree student of the B Barooah College went missing from 3 in the afternoon from Panbazar where he went to buy books. Police operation is going on in the city to trace Saidul who hails from Kokrajhar. Panbazar police station has already registered a case and investigation is going on.
Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said that altogether 13 refugees died in Kokrajhar, Chirang and Dhubri districts during the recent violence. Addressing a press conference in Guwahati, Dr Sarma said that the department was working in 303 relief camps in the affected districts. According to him, so far blood tests of 8102 refugees have been conducted with over hundred of them testing positive for malaria.
A slew of strategies is in place to counter any effort by ULFA to monger trouble the run-up to Independence Day.Talking to reporters in Guwahati on Saturday, Senior Superintendednt of Police of Kamrup Metro Aditya Prakash Tiwari said that surveillance, pickets have been increased to ensure that the militant groups are not able to disrupt peace in Guwahati. According to Tiwari, ULFA cadres are working closely with other militant groups like the Meghalaya-based Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA).
Panic grips thousands of local residents in Tinsukia district after they came to notice high levels of gas emissions in water. The villagers in Hilikhaguri are scared of using the water from the hand pump to douse out the fires they use to cook food in their houses. This gas emissions spread beyond Deohall tea estate. The angry people in Hilikhaguri village blamed it all on Oil India for not paying any attention to the repeated complaints.
The All Bodoland Minority Students' Union on Saturday denied involvement of a newly formed unit was involved in the recent clashes. The organization said that there was no evidence about it. The ABMSU leader said refugee camps were facing shortage of essential items despite assurances by the administration.
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