Sir,
This has reference to the writeup ‘Recognising invisible partners’ (DE, Oct 15, 2018).There is no doubt that women across the world are equal partners to men in agricultural sector but their hard work is hardly recognised. They help their partners in variety of agricultural activities like sowing, reaping, weeding, harvesting, storing and even marketing and processing of various agricultural products. Not only this, women in rural areas perform such allied activites as dairy, poultry, apiary, rearing of sheep and goats etc, besides the hard routine work like sweeping the rooms and verandahs, washing clothes, cooking, bringing water from natural sources of water, taking care of children, nursing sick elders etc.In times of migration of men to cities in search of work, it is the women who shoulder the onerous responsibility of running their homes by efficiently doing all work single handedly. In other words, women sacrifice their own comforts for the other members of the family.
But it is sad that their contribution and hard work in fields and homes is little recognised and often they have little say in the routine and major decisions pertaining to the affairs of home.Women farmers are, in no way less hardworking, efficient and productive than their male counterparts. What is required is to encourage and appreciate them and provide them opportunities to make use of their full potential.Women farmers also ought to be given more representation in Cooperative and other agricultural societies. Subsidized loans should be provided to the women who are the head of their families.The Department of Agriculture ought to organise awareness programmes exclusively for the women farmers and those who exhibit exceptional improvement in their field need to be rewarded.The writers deserve to be appreciated for paying befitting tribute to the invisible and silent farmers that rural women are. More such articles need to be published to highlight the hard and busy life of rural women and appreciate their role.
Ashok Sharma,
Udhampur.
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