Sustainable Agriculture and Food: Four volume set (Earthscan Reference Collections)

48 The Global Food System

women have experienced an increase in workload on their own farms, but it is the
qualitative shifts in their livelihoods that people themselves say have been most
significant (Table 1.9).
These qualitative changes were particularly important for women: their former
work in labouring gangs in Surat was ‘at the unbearable cost of insecurity, poor
health, overwork, shame and loss of social respect’ (Kaul Shah, 1993). The decrease
in migration through substitution from local income-earning opportunities repre-
sents a significant improvement in welfare. Asked how they would describe being
‘happy’, women replied ‘when we don’t have to migrate to Surat and have enough
to feed ourselves and our children’. This is despite the fact that wages are two to
three times greater in Surat. Some of the most interesting changes recorded have
been shifts in the work burden of men and women. Bullock carts are now used for
gathering fuelwood and carting harvested rice from the fields, both formerly time
consuming and heavy work for women. And where agricultural activities, such as

Table 1.9 Changes in livelihoods of men and women of Samarpasa village, Bharuch

District, Gujarat, following the adoption of modern varieties, some fertilizers, and soil

and water conservation measures as part of a participatory watershed management

supported by the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme

Criteria Before programme

(1987)

After programme

(1992)

No. households migrating to Surat for

2–10 months of every year

42 6

No. women migrating without men 14 0

No. households not migrating 13 34

Agricultural wage labour (Rs/day)

men 2 13–15

women 3 13–15

Number of village children in school 8 56

Regularity of full meals during summer 1 per 3 days 2 per day

Vegetable consumption rainy season only every day

No. bullock carts owned 0 19

Sources of livelihoods:

agriculture 20% 60%

migrating labour 80% 20%

non-farm income/employment in village 0 20%

Women’s involvement in decisions on

purchase of vegetable seeds, milch

animals tree saplings, clothing

none regular

Ownership of clothing by women in

landless and poorest group

1 set 3 sets

Source: Kaul Shah, 1993