Women in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (NRM) in Andhra Pradesh –A Status Report

In the present paper an attempt has been made to examine the role of women in Andhra Pradesh Agriculture especially in natural resource management. The study focused on studying participation of women in crop management, wage discrimination, ownership, access to economic resources and economic decision making and natural resources management at micro level and macro level. The study revealed that about 22% of cost of cultivation and 56% of the labour cost is incurred towards female labour accounting to Rs 3424 out of cost of cultivation Rs. 19725/ha in case of paddy cultivation. The economic value of women’s participation was accounting to be Rs. 2558 of the total cost of cultivation (Rs. 13567/- per ha) of sorghum. There was a glaring difference in wage rates revealing discrimination between men and women wage rates. The year to year (y-t-y) wage difference was only 12.73 during 2000-01 a decade ago, later grew to 35.13 during 2010-11. The lower wage rates to women were because female labour is available in plenty than male labour. Policy initiatives such as identify women as a key player in NRM both at micro and macro level, when the Govt. distributes surplus land, it has to consider the possibility of transferring the ownership of land to women encourage leasing out fallow land for cultivation of food crops through women SHGs, train the tribal women on how to make use of NFTP and other MFP without disturbing forest cover.