Food Security, Productivity, and Gender Inequality - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 290

purchasing land in groups of 5 to 15 women, through various government schemes that
provide subsidized credit and/or grants (Agarwal 2003, 2010c). The land is then cul-
tivated collectively. The aim is to ensure food security in an environmentally friendly
way, through organic farming and multiple cropping. In 2008, the group leasing pro-
gram covered 26 villages, cultivating around 85 hectares. In addition, 25 women's groups
were cultivating about 225 hectares of purchased land in 21 villages. This land had been
bought through a grant-cum-credit scheme of the state government, meant to help poor
women purchase land as a group. The land is registered in equal portions in individual
women's names but cultivated jointly. These women would not have been able to buy
this land or use it as productively, on an individual basis. The groups are voluntary in
nature, socioeconomically homogenous, constituted of women who know each other,
small in size, participatory in decision making, and equitable in task sharing and dis-
tribution of produce. Standard collective action problems are solved by peer review at
weekly meetings. Some groups grow up to 24 crop varieties a year (the seeds of which
they preserve), thus reducing the risk of total crop failure and providing a balanced diet.
Group members report that working together has enhanced their ability to overcome
production constraints, meet government officials, and enjoy flexibility in the use of
their labor time. They also report an improvement in family diets and healthcare, among
other benefits.
Other examples of group farming can also be found in South Asia. In Andhra
Pradesh, India, for instance, through a different initiative from that of DDS, around
7,500 women farmers are farming in groups of anything between 15 to 30 women in each
group, covering a total of about 425 hectares of dryland in 250 villages.17 The land is
typically obtained on lease, but some women also pool their own land that was uncul-
tivated due to input constraints. The initial impetus for group formation was provided
by a five-year project begun in 2000 by the United Nations Development Programme
and the Government of India, involving 42,000 women living in around 1,000 villages
in three states (Burra 2004). Even after the project ended, however, the groups have
continued in many villages under other arrangements. Another notable example is the
Kudumbashree program launched by the government of Kerala (south India) for sup-
porting landless and land-poor women to lease in land for group farming. Additionally,
since 2010, the Joint Liability Group (JLG) scheme of the National Bank for Agriculture
and Rural Development (NABARD), has helped link the groups with subsidized credit.
There are reported to be several thousand women leasing land for group farming in all
districts of the state. The community has also gained, since the women's groups have
brought substantial fallow land into cultivation.18 In Bangladesh, too, we can find exam-
ples of women's groups leasing in land for joint cultivation. These are found to have
notable growth potential, if provided access to credit and technical support. 19
The preceding examples demonstrate in different ways the potential of small-scale
farmers voluntarily working together in groups for the output and food security gains
they bring, and the resource constraints they help overcome. In sub-Saharan Africa,
where communal systems of land ownership are still widespread, the possibility of
women farming collectively warrants similar exploration. We need to know much