Tales of the tail-enders

But things seem to have been changing, albeit at a slower pace, over the years. Especially the last decade witnessed the development of females on different fronts. Females in rural areas are now reported to be in the front line in many ways. May be that pervasive presence of poverty propelled a change of perceptions in the whole spectrum of societal superstitions. There are, in fact, many stories in circulation where females are reported to be in the frontline of education, business, services, social works etc. For my readers, however, I shall pick up few "resource poor" females who are basically farmers -- looking after both pre-and post-harvest operations of their agriculture. They seem to struggle to survive and survive to struggle but never surrender. However, first, few words on "resource poor".

Definitional dilemma

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There is perhaps, neither dearth of data dealing with the poor nor poverty, nor a dearth of definition on the poor. Economists had long been at loggerheads over detecting the attributes of the poor and their poverty levels. Consensus on this count is yet to come but one concept is clear from all sides: the poor and poverty are multi-dimensional aspects, not to be left to the domain of income or any other single criterion of causation. Therefore, the definition of the "resource poor" that we shall use in subsequent submissions could, possibly, produce storm over a cup of tea. But let us see the justification behind the definition.

PETRRA's poor

The Poverty Elimination Through Rice Research Assistance (PETRRA) project of IRRI adopted the concept of 'resource poor farmers' (RPFs) in their project paraphernalia. One could cast serious doubt as to whether poverty of a segment of population can be eliminated even after deploying all the arms at the armoury, not to speak of rice researches alone. But one could equally agree with the view that poverty could be curtailed by a respectable margin only through rice researches. Any way, the RPFs of PETRRA-led projects are supposed to have the few features. First, farming should be their main source of income and employment. Second, they cultivate a meagre amount of land -- 100 decimals or so. This could be either own land, others' land or a combination of both. Third, they tend to generate additional income by working for 100 days/year or so on others' land. And finally, they have provisions for rice from own farms for 6-7 months of the year.

Quite understandably, PETRRA's poor are not extreme poor. With the endowments of land and labour, they would have at best fulfilled the 2200-calorie needs of the household members and can be described as 'moderate poor'. They are poor because of limited resources and not because of a lack of it which applies for the extreme poor. However, such poor are always on the fringe of a fall and once fallen, could swell the ranks of the extreme poor. PETRRA's purpose is to arrest the fall of today's moderate poor or the rise of tomorrow's poor.

Arguably, that could occur if the RPFs could utilise their land optimally by devoting the full potentials of male and female members of the households and by using the most cost-effective means of managing resources -- at their disposal -- for increased output. And since rice accounts for three-fourths of their calorie intake, a lion's share of employment and two-thirds of household budgets, supposedly any attempt to raise the productivity of tiny rice lands would tantamount to a titanic outcome. Unfortunately, in the past, the RPFs have hardly been addressed by the NGOs, governmental interventions or even by researchers. All roads led to either the "haves" (large, medium) or the "have-nots" (landless or functionally landless) with little focus on those lying in between. Whereas, their proportion as farmers is reportedly rising and I reckon that they would even become the soldiers of the future self-sufficiency in rice in Bangladesh.

Ipso facto, targeting them is a timely concern. The objectives should be to provide them with information, knowledge and technology that they can easily sail in to survive, given their resource endowments. For example, we can provide them with (a) foundation seeds to grow more seeds to exchange with other farmers in and around; (b) training with regard to rouging and preservation techniques of seeds in the wake of a 15-20 per cent loss of output from sick or bad seeds; (c) training on the uses of balanced fertilizer in the face of their preoccupation with urea only and losing fertility of soil and hence output; (d) introducing the economics of growing FAG -- Fine, Aromatic and Glutinous -- rice that has higher income elasticity of demand and better chances of export. Admittedly, the prices of these rice varieties are two to three times the rice they are growing at almost the same cost and with same care.

Lady with the land

Very recently, I met 16 "resource poor" females, engaged in and enlightened by the various projects of PETRRA-partners in the village of Krishnanagar. The training on farm seeds, MVs, input management, and others are led by Agricultural Advisory Society (AAS) in this village, both for males and females. The village is almost half way between Dhaka and Srimongal, Sylhet. It has a population of 2000 and households 200 or so (imagine the density!). Half of the households are landless with only homestead land, and half also are pure tenants. So, the features of the village, possibly, justify the name 'Krishnanagar' -- a place under the dark.

I was curious to talk to Masuda Begum (45), Ayesha Begum (40) and Minara Akhter (30) as I was told that they are female farmers. In our rural areas, females mostly carry out post harvest operations but these three females have been at the forefront of the agricultural operations of their households. Thus, they are engaged in seed-to-seed activities i.e. growing seeds to harvesting seeds. Reportedly, they roam around their rice plots to see that things move as per prescriptions. All of them know about soil conditions and types, crops to be grown in different plots, hiring labour and other inputs etc. During the planting time, they are reported to sit on the aisle to see for themselves that proper distances are maintained between plants and rows -- the teaching that they got from training. During the last boro season, Masuda Begum and her husband harvested the whole crop of their 28 decimal plot. Masuda also carried the harvests home. "Otherwise I would have to pay Tk.700-800 for contracting out", she told me. Ayesha appeared more agile, active and energetic. Minara appeared relatively shy but sagacious. According to the villagers, the ladies who got training on agricultural operations, especially these three front liners, are doing extremely well. " You need not have to have sons if you have daughters like them", a wealthy villager who praised their efforts towards uplift, told me. That does not, however, mean that their males have no role to play. "They reportedly play a minor role", some of the females who were present during the dialogue said to me.

Of course, I could detect the degree of their developing dominance from a simple question: who is your household head? Masuda looked at her husband sitting nearby, smiled and said,' "actually my husband. But I do the most works for the family and hence you can say both of us are household heads!" Ayesha and Minara expressed the same sentiment.

The females that I met there informed me that their economic conditions have been improving over the years. I presumed that the Dhaka-Sylhet highway passing by the village and the operations of some NGOs could have contributed to that on the non-farm side. The PETRRA-partners seemingly signaled an option from the agricultural side where they could manage their own food provisions from growing more rice from the same amount of land. All of them agreed that preservation of seeds, growing MVs, use of balanced fertilizer etc. are the technologies that would suit them. The only problem was that they were not aware of these and especially if available, these were for males only. The females in Krishnanagar village gave me the impression that females could be equally good farmers -- if not better -- than the males. According to them, the new techniques of seed preservation, growing MVs and resource management increased the yield of rice almost two times!

Poor and puzzle

At the last leg of our long discussions, I put before all of the 16 females a puzzle: "mention three (as per importance) things that you would expect from your 'pro-poor' politicians to do for you". I observed that 10 of them mentioned seed first, saplings second and education (primary) third. Four of them noted saplings first, training second and seed third. And finally two of them mentioned, in order of priority, help for housing, goat/bullock, education.

Notice, first, that although called poor, none of them expected any relief or doles from their "dear" political leaders. Second, none of them expected consumption items e.g. cash help, clothing, wheat or rice etc. Finally, all of them expected investment items from their leaders. Surely, seed, saplings and education, if properly provided, could go a long way in alleviating their poverty and generating future income. Among them, Ayesha said to me: ekjone bish khaile ekjone moray, kintu ekjone biz khaile ghorer shobai moray (drinking poison kills one but eating up seeds as food, kills everyone in the house).

However, the puzzle that I threw to them bounced back to me. I wondered as to how could these resource poor females be so rich in perceptions about the future stream of benefits and costs of seed, saplings and education. I presume the NGOs working there might have caused some influence and the electronic media, some impact. But the most important cause could be the Chaynovian hypothesis of subsistence pressures.

Driving back to Srimongal, I was recollecting their responses. The road was patchy and bumpy. Economic development -- said a famous economist -- is a treacherous road. I hope the females that I met would overcome their barriers and start for a smooth sailing. There seems light at the end of the tunnel.

Abdul Bayes is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.