Adding on to the point made by Nitya on gender sensitization of agriculture graduates, engendering the curriculum of agriculture universities will be a good starting point and has to be actively pushed for. The M S Swaminathan Research Foundation and Kerala Agricultural University had collaborated on preparing course material on these lines more than a decade ago: However, uptake is proving to be a slow process.
Another area is policy for women in agriculture, taking into account the multiple roles they play on the farm and on the home front. Government officials responsible for delivery of entitlements related to agriculture at the village level have to be gender sensitive.
The title to land is in most cases in the man's name. A woman farmer in spite of shouldering a lot of the work on the land, cannot get access to agriculture schemes in her name. In the process, widows of farmers who commit suicide are oftentimes left at a loose end.
A Women Farmers' Entitlement Act is very much needed.
Dr. Bhavani R Vaidyanathan