When we picture a farmer in India, the image is almost always of a man standing tall in a field, sickle in hand, tilling the soil. But the reality of agriculture in this country is very different: a majority of farm work is carried out by women farmers. Approximately 80 percent of all economically active women are employed in the agriculture sector and approximately 40 percent of the agricultural workforce is women.

These women farmers work on their family land, as daily wage labourers, and in looking after livestock, making them the backbone of our food systems. Yet their role in agriculture largely remains invisible and policies rarely take them into account. But while we fail to acknowledge or value their work, can we really imagine a world in which women stop farming? Can we even exist in a world where women are not involved in agricultural production?

On our podcast On the Contrary by IDR, we spoke with Ireena Vittal, one of India’s most respected independent consultants and advisers on emerging markets, agriculture, and urban development, and Kavitha Kuruganti, activist and founder-convener of Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, about the role women farmers play in India’s agriculture.

Below is an edited transcript that provides an overview of the guests’ perspectives on the show.

Indian Agriculture Is Driven Largely by Women Farmers

Kavitha: There is probably no woman who is not a worker, and no rural woman who is not associated, at least peripherally, with agriculture. Among women counted as workers by our official data systems, at least 73 percent (as per the latest figures) are engaged in agriculture, [whether as] self-employed [farmers], casual labourers, [or] agricultural labourers. We are talking about a very important category of workers in agriculture—women.

Except for some gendered roles that are thrust on men, most of the work, such as transplanting, harvesting, weeding, and sowing, is done by women. Indian agriculture is driven mostly by women putting in their labour. And Indian rural women are largely surviving off agriculture. It is almost a symbiotic relationship. Agriculture needs women farmers and women farmers need agriculture.

Read the full article about women farmers in India by Kavitha Kuruganti and Ireena Vittal at India Development Review.