Development Project in Maharastra

Empowerment of Women:
Sustainable Agriculture & Property Rights

an IDS-Michigan Chapter sponsored project in Maharashtra, India

Background information:

Maharashtra is a state on the western coast of India and includes the city of Bombay. The Mhaswad area of Maharastra is a rural drought prone region which was historically a herding area. Though women traditionally did not hold property, they were primarily responsible for family's goats, cows and buffaloes and were free to spend or invest money earned from the livestock as they saw fit. In addition, women collectively managed common grazing areas.

Ironically, while independence from Great Britain after WWII gave women formal legal rights in India, world trends in economic development have eroded women's social and economic roles. In particular the green revolution has increased farmers' dependen ce on expensive inputs and technologies. Whereas agricultural knowledge was formerly shared and disseminated by communities, mainly through women, it is now bought from mulinational corporations or rationed by the state in the form of subsidies or "dev elopment aid". Modern dairies now exclude women from the control of animals and their products. Common grazing lands have been privatized and are no longer managed by the community. And seeds must be bought or procured from the state to grow crops highly dependent on fertilizers and often herbicides or pesticides, products which also must be obtained outside of the community. Formerly self sufficient communities now find themselves shifting away from local food production to "cash crops" to meet the rising costs of green technology.

Rural communities such as those in Mhaswad have suffered from the loss of natural resource controls and the simulataneous intensification of land use. In addition, the marginalization of women is blamed for the current increase of domestic violence.

Campaign for Property Rights: Laxmi Mukti

In 1986, the Alliance of Women Farmers (Shetkari Mahila Aghadi) was founded within the Mhaswad community to address these problems. By 1989 they had succeeded in sweeping the elections in nine village councils. They began the Laxmi Mukti campa ign to grant women a share in family property. (Laxmi Mukti means "freeing the goddess" in which the goddess Laxmi refers to peasant women as the wealth-goddess of the household). In this program women from poor and landless families are assist ed to exercise their property rights granted in India's constitution. This program has been implemented in nearly 600 villages already where an average of 100 women from each village have gained property.

Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture: Sita Sheti

In 1991, a large independent farmer's organization called Shetkari Sanghatana has joined the Alliance of Women Farmers for a more recent campaign called Sita Sheti or Sita Farming. (Sita is the heroine of the Ramayana who is the "daugh ter of the earth" and this term evokes the concept of women having invented agriculture.) The goal of this campaign is to provide training and logistical support for ecologically sustainable agriculture to poor families in which women are the primary fa rmers. The emphasis of the experimental farming is on low external inputs and recovering and maintaining traditional varieties of seeds. Women attend training camps where they are encouraged to discuss issues such as water use, nutrient balance, and co mpost production. In addition they establish seed banks of local crop varieties and nurseries to evaluate the quality of particular varieites, such as pest resistance or drought tolerance.

Though there is much support for alternative agriculture and condemnation of the environmental degradation caused by green revolution techniques in intellectual and middle class circles, Sita Sheti represents a unique collective movement among the farme rs themselves. This program not only creates alternatives for poor farmers but also empowers women to regain their lost status and participate in family and community decisions. Women will no longer simply be laborers on the land, but innovators and entrepreneurs.

Success stories

Some successes of the program are already evident. In Vinter Village, women gained property rights through Laxmi Mukti and were able to claim the additional profit when they used Sita Sheti techniques such as applying composted manure to lemon trees. The farmers alliances are also establishing savings and credit facilities as well as new marketing ventures, such as chain stores which sell the organic produce.

The Future

These projects are seeking external funding to increase their access to resources such as scientific journals and to expand the project into neighboring areas of Karnataka and Gujarat. Chetna Gala, one of the project directors, has lived and farmed in t his area for over seven years and is well acquainted with the social and physical difficulties that farming women face in this region.

Donations to the IDS-Michigan Chapter are currently the sole source of external funds to this project. Please help us to fulfill our $2,000 annual commitment (for two years) through your donation or membership.

We are very pleased that Dr. Gail Omvedt, one of the directors of this project, spoke at the University of Michigan on January 19 and 20, 1996.

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This page was last modified on Monday, 29-Jan-1996 00:03:20 EST