Women Farmers in Kudumbashree Programme: Gendered Ownership and Control over Productive Resources

Abstract

Women in India play a crucial role in agriculture, and their work ranging from crop production to post-harvesting. They work as cultivators, paid agricultural labourers or sometimes work in their family land as unpaid workers. Even if women contribute to farming, literature shows that they lack resources, including access, control and ownership of the productive resources for doing farming. The Kudumbashree collective farming programme through long-term leasing of land is an initiative through which it is premised that women's collective bargaining increases and improves their control over productive resources. Using Naila Kabeer's framework of Social Relations, this article examines how the Kudumbashree programmes impact women farmers' access, control and ownership of productive resources. It analyses the programme's potential for women farmers' empowerment and the transformation of gender relations using Kabeer's framework.​