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Do female-led farms perform less well in cotton production? Insight from Hebei province (China)

Fok M., Wang G.. 2011. In : Venugopalan M.V. (ed.), Balasubramanya R.H. (ed.), Kranthi Sandhya (ed.), Blaise (ed.). World Cotton Research Conference-5, Mumbai, 7-11 November 2011. Theme : Technologies for prosperity. Book of papers (Oral presentation of WCRC-5). New Delhi : Excel India Publishers, p. 435-441. World Cotton Research Conference. 5, 2011-11-07/2011-11-12, Mumbai (Inde).

Most of the emerging countries witnessed outmigration of farming community away from agriculture to cities. This was mainly due to rapid industrialisation, fast rising service sectors growth and low profitability of farming being agriculture is a gamble of rainfall. Generally, it is the men folk who leave their wives behind and migrate to cities in search of better alternative jobs. This phenomenon gives rise to the feminization of agriculture and raises the concern of lower productivity. A few studies in developing countries have indicated that female-led farms lack access to production factors such as land, labour and capital. In China, the migration of farmers to cities and the feminization of agriculture were well documented, but studies on the impact of feminization on agricultural performance and productivity are rare. The impacts of feminization on agriculture have been assessed on a regional or cropping system level, but not on a specific crop. In light of the above, the present paper deals with the status and performance of the feminization on cotton cropping in Hebei Province (Northern China). As cotton cropping is widely acknowledged to be both labour and capital intensive it is most appropriate to assess not only the impacts of feminization on its productivity but also to check the assumption whether female-led farms lack factors of production. Therefore, the study was conducted to analyse the cotton cropping systems on identified farms run by women and compare their yield and gross income with the alternative farms. The study stems its base on primary data collected through survey method for the period 2006 to 2009. Farms were considered to be female-led, when husbands or their spouse was away for more than five months per year.

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