Learning and sharing in communication
for rural development

Dear All I am not responding to specific question in the discussion but here are a few issues from women's perspective and a couple more which impacts farmers irrespective of gender: The following is true at least for the Indian sub-continent though there are exceptions of course as there are other factors like caste, religion, region, etc. It is a known fact that women do the bulk of labour work on the farms. 1. Women should have joint ownership of the farm land along with their husbands. Usually, the farm land is owned by the men in the house. This needs to change as men use women as free labour. In recent past, women have been given inheritance rights in India but women have to go through a long struggle to get it implemented. 2. Women should have an equal say in the decision-making related to the family farms. Ensuring joint ownership will not automatically translate in women having an equal say. 3. Women should be recognised as farmers too. Why should they be called 'housewife' or 'farmers' wives'? 4. Often women do not have ownership access to communication tools like radio sets or mobile telephones, etc. Those in the business of designing ICT material must keep this in mind too. Some general issues: 1. The farmers (including women) cannot make an informed choice of switching from traditional crop (suitable to the local ecological conditions) to cash crop (which may not be suited to the specific region and end up draining the natural resources of the region) to...