Females are leading an agricultural transformation in Bangladesh with many coming out from home-management chore to run small and medium commercial-farming entrepreneurships across the country, labour transition shows.
The transformation-visibly occurring over a decade now--has already kept a positive impact on the overall women labour-force participation in farming, while men are switching to urban services, analysts say.
Women are ahead of men in agriculture and its subsectors as their rate of employment is 7.0- percentage-point higher than their male counterpart, official statistics show.
The country's highest employment-creation sector is gradually getting dominated by females as their engagement in agriculture and every agricultural subsector, including poultry and livestock, fisheries and horticulture, has been on an increase, analysts say.
According to the Labour Force Survey (LFS) 2022 of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the participation of women, aged 15 and above, in agriculture is 26.2 per cent while the rate of their counterpart is 19.2 per cent.
Economists and experts say transformation of the higher female agro-labour force into agro-entrepreneurs could be a better way of boosting the capacity of Bangladesh's agricultural output.
Although the capacity of the women in farming is improving in Bangladesh slowly, it will have to be upgraded for getting a better outcome, they suggest.
"Since agriculture is a dominating employment area in the country, the outcome from the farming will have to be boosted through upgrading the capacity in this sector," says one analyst.
The local startup companies, commercial banks, financial institutions, government agencies and foreign development partners are also helping the women farmers and entrepreneurs for expanding their commercial farming and business as well.
Agri-experts say scores of startup enterprises have come forward to support the farmers and agro-entrepreneurs, including the women, for expanding their spheres of farming and businesses.
Over the last one decade, at least 50 startup companies have dominated the agricultural labour force and the employment with their facilitation to the crops, livestock and fisheries farmers and entrepreneurs, they add.
Fahad Ifaz, CEO of Bangladesh-based startup company iFarmer, says it is helping change the dynamics as they are facilitating the female farmers for the access to resources to grow their businesses and agency within the household.
The company enables small-scale farmers and agribusinesses to access finance, insurance, inputs and training on crops, livestock, fisheries and poultry, as well as information on market conditions and weather advisories.
"We are working to break down the barriers holding back women farmers by giving them greater access to financial resources, quality farming inputs and market access," says Mr Ifaz.
The iFarmer CEO thinks increased opportunities for women in the sector can significantly impact agriculture-driven growth.
Saheena Akhtar, a female agro-entrepreneur in Godagari in Rajshahi, has established a small farmhouse with some three acres of cropland, two fishing ponds and a livestock farm beside her house where 10 women and three men are working regularly.
"Once upon a time, I used to help my husband in his farming in the crop-fields. Five years
Back, I started with a cattle farm adjacent to my house. I started with three small cows and two goats. Now I have a small dairy farm with four cows, 10 oxen and 15 goats for commercial farming," she told the FE.
"I have also started to cultivate different types of crops on three acres of land and over the last three years it has been totally commercial farming. Now I am getting better profit from my farming," says Ms Akhtar.
Along with her 13 permanent staff members, she usually engages daily women labourers, including from the Santal community, for land preparation, planting and for entire cultivation process in her farms as they are "very hardworking".
Like Saheena Akhtar, many women in Bangladesh over the last one decade have transformed their household farming into commercial operations.
According to the latest LFS 2022 of the BBS, a total of 18.43 million women are engaged in agricultural works out of the total 31.98 million women workforce engaged in different jobs and works.
Five years back in 2017, the female workforce was only 11.128 million out of total 24.69 million agriculture-sector labourers in Bangladesh, the LFS 2016-17 statistics showed.
Tapoch K Das, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercantile Bank Limited, told the FE that they have been helping financially some agro-based small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across Bangladesh.
"Over the last one decade, women are coming forward to the commercial agriculture. Some of them have food farmhouses and business too.
"Our bank always encourages those types of agriculture-based farmers and entrepreneurs with its financial arm."
Policy Exchange Bangladesh CEO Dr Masrur Reaz told the FE that the transformation of agriculture by women has facilitated the increase in the women labour force in employment.
Besides, ICT, especially mobile phone and internet connections, rural road development and boosting the wages in the agro-based farming have also encouraged the women to join in agricultural activities over the years in Bangladesh
Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Towfiqul Islam Khan says the women in agricultural works are not getting stabilized. "So, the government and other authorities concerned should work to bring the women into the formal jobs, business and commercial ventures in the farming aimed at engaging them in a stable work environment," he adds.
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