<p><b>Project Theme: </b>Economic Justice</p>
<p><b>Project Period: </b>1st April 2014 – 31st March 2015</p>
<p><b>Project Name: </b>"Elevating Women farmers' issues at national and local level"</p>
<p><b>Project Location: </b>National level with sp. focus on Bihar, UP, Uttarakhand and Odisha</p>
<p><b>Budget(Annual): </b>Rs 24,95,228</p>

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Women constitute 86% of the labour force in agriculture in India as against 62% men. Women work nearly 3400 Hrs as against 1212 Hrs by men in a one hectare farm in India. However, according to the Indian Agricultural census, women own only about 9% of land in India, and in some states they own as low as 2-4%. Women agricultural producers are not recognised as farmers in Indian official policy, and the society is not ready to accept them as farmers in their own right. While getting land for the landless is a priority for civil society organisations, the same level of priority does not exist when it comes to women’s land rights. Women have only received their legal entitlement to inherit agricultural land in 2005 when the Hindu Succession Act was amended last. However, this amendment is still largely unknown the most civil society actors, and almost completely unknown to the women and men for whom it matters. Governments in most states have not issued any circulars informing their staff about this amendment resulting in large information deficit even among the state machinery. There are serious barriers that exist against women claiming their rightful inheritance. All these call for a carefully crafted strategy to elevate the issues of landless people and women farmers at all levels. Oxfam India has taken this as one of their country engagement strategy in India, and is already working with its partners on this issue. Rural Development Institute, has also made securing land rights to all landless and women’s land rights as one of its strategic objectives in India. Hence, Both work together on this issue to increase intensity of engagement of major stakeholders for realising increased access to land by women farmers.
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<p>
Rural Development Institute is registered in India as Public Charitable Trust, and has FCRA registration. It’s a family member of Landesa, USA and has acquired the same brand name in India. It works in four states of Odisha, Andhra, West Bengal and Karnataka where it has its state office and state teams. Its national office primarily works on research and advocacy, networking, and technical support to state teams. Rural Development Institute India has 53 employees on its roll. It receives assistance from Landesa USA on funding, research, law, and internal capacity building, for which it has an MOU with them
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<h3>About the Project: </h3>
<p>This project is being implemented with a goal to contribute to increase women farmers and landless agriculture labourers’ access to and control over land. The project planned to achieve this goal through more and intense engagement of key stakeholders such as policy makers, government implementing bodies, CSOs and medias on women farmers issues for planning of and effective implementation of pro-poor and pro-women farmer policy reforms and programmes. </p>
<p>Activities undertaken under this project are- organising two district level media workshop to bring women farmers issues into media’s attention, considering media’s significant role in increasing people’ awareness and policy making. </p>
<h3>Expected Results: </h3>
<ul class="list-group">
<li>Policy makers and other key stakeholders to be sensitised on women farmers issue and on women property rights issues.</li>
<li>Seek pro-women farmer policy reforms.</li>
<li>Ensure that women are recognized as farmers, legally and socially. </li>
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<h3>Achievements: </h3>
<ul class="list-group">
<li>National and state level media workshops organised to sensitise journalists on women farmers' issues and on land laws for women. Over 17 mainstream media reports and opinion articles on women farmers' issues were published.</li>
<li>Women farmers from six states of India- Odisha, UP, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand where Oxfam India works through its partners were felicitated. This drew the attention of policy makers and media. This encouraged more women farmers to fight for their rights. </li>
<li>Capacity built for 65 civil society organisations on Land laws. These groups work for the rights of women farmers. </li>
<li>A fact sheet on women land rights was produced and distributed among the key stakeholders.</li>
<li>A study on impact of women land rights (joint land title vs. single land title) on women economic empowerment was conducted in two districts of Uttar Pradesh. </li>
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