WYTEP

Women have been playing an important role in all economic and productive activities. Their contribution in the agriculture sector is significant in farming activities on small and marginal land holdings. These holdings are not big enough to employ wage labour, but need considerable labour, which is provided by the family members. And yet the agriculture extension systems had not taken cognisance of this segment of farmers in their Extension services. Extension services that began in the 70s through the `Training and Visit system', focussed only on male farmers.

The WYTEP project came in response to the realisation that improvements in agric cultural productivity can happen only if women in farming households are reached by the extension services. And that they have to be trained with technical inputs related to their specific roles in agriculture.

WYTEP made a deliberate intervention to make the Extension System `gender sensitive' by focussing on the training and extension needs of farmwomen. The project that was started in 1984 in Karnataka and has been through 3 phases of implementation, successive phases drawing on the learning of previous phases. The project is now in Phase III covering the whole of Karnataka. The Project has established the value of gender sensitive extension services and paved the way for similar projects in Tamil Nadu, Orissa, and Madhya Pradesh with Danish support, and in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh with Dutch support.

Education: After graduating from Bangalore University, studied in The Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore for a Post-graduate Diploma in Management and in Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi for a Ph.D in Human Resources Development

Experience: Taught in XLRI, Jamshedpur, worked as management consultant since 1986, worked with several Bi-lateral agenies, state and National government in development management. Key areas of work has been Management Training, Research and Consulancy

Current Position: Project Co-ordinator, The Center for Budget and Policy Studies, Bangalore

Contact Address: 451, 38Across, 5th block, Jayanagar, Bangalore 560041.India Phone 98452-31797, e-mail peevy_bgl@yahoo.com

Meetings with Officials of WYTEP and TANWA, Field visits to the two projects, Project documents, Evaluation report of Danida, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Name of the Organisation – Department of Agriculture, Government of Karnataka

Address/phone/ fax - The Commissioner of Agriculture ,Seshadri Road Bangalore 560001 , Karnataka

Agriculture is the backbone of the Indian economy, it supports about 70% of the population directly and provides inputs for the secondary sectors of the economy.

Most of Indian farm holdings are small and marginal i.e. less than 5 acres. On these holdings, the entire family is engaged in agricultural activities, doing what Robert Chambers has referred to as `diverse risk prone subsistence farming'. The farming is integrated – often combining the varied natural resources of land, water and vegetation to support farming, animal husbandry, and horticulture, to provide a variety of products needed to support life.

The Extension Services in the sixties - In the sixties, when India's population was growing in leaps and bounds, the nation's concern was production of enough food to feed its population; land productivity became a major focus. And knowledge of improved agricultural methods was to be disseminated to farmers so that they could get more out of their lands.

This was accomplished through an agricultural extension system, and then known as the `Training and Visit System'. The T&V system reached information on new farming methods and technologies in farming to `contact farmers' who were then expected to influence others in the community to take to these changes in their farming.

Extension education had to keep in mind the fact that adult learning process is different from children's learning and required a mix of methodologies – information input, hands on, experimentation and observation, field demonstrations and so on.

This methodology though effective had a major lacuna. It focussed on the contact farmer who was in most cases a man, and provided services through extension officers who were almost always men! It left out any direct communication and contact with women farmers who had a critical role in several farming activities. Some extension education reached women but limited itself to the `domestic' role of women – such as food preparation, preservation, childcare etc. It did not take cognisance of the work done by women in the field – in seed selection and treatment, sowing, application of manure, weeding, pest management and harvesting and post harvest activities. It was the realization of this lacuna, the `gender blindness' of the extension system that led to the formulation of WYTEP – the women and youth training and extension project in Karnataka.

The Government of Karnataka launched WYTEP in 1984 with support from Danida. It focussed on building the capacities of farmwomen to effectively manage their role in agriculture – in farming operations such as

The WYTEP came out of a vision of some key people – Ms.Padmasini Asuri, an official of GOI in the department of agriculture extension, Mr.G.V.K Rao, an official of the GOK and The Danida mission in India.

Ms.Padmasini Asuri can be called the key champion of the project. In 1974, when the World Bank supported T&V system came into operation extensively, she was working as an official of the Agricultural Extension department of the GOI. Her extensive field experience had made her realize how much of the farming activities are done by women in small and marginal holdings; and yet the T&V approach assumed that the information would `trickle down' from male farmers to their wome n. This provoked her to prepare a paper on the role played by women in agriculture and the need to reach women farmers with technical information on means to improve productivity. The paper opened the eyes of some progressive officers of the GOK and GOI and was widely circulated. In the meantime, the Danish mission in India, which had several cooperation operations in Animal Husbandry sector, was looking for innovative projects that focussed on rural women in the primary sector. Another impetus in the state came from the fact that women graduates emerging from the Agricultural universities needed employment opportunities. Ms.Asuri's paper provided the necessary rationale and framework for the formulation of the WYTEP project as a pioneering attempt at `gendering' the extension services.

It is quite interesting to note that there was an attempt to locate this/implement this with the Women and child department; perhaps the project would have taken an entirely different path then, once again focussing on the reproductive role of women. That the project was firmly located in the agricultural department helped it get out of the gender stereotypes and establish a new agenda for the extension services.

Project Time frame
Date of commencement - 1984
DATE OF Completion -2005
Project in 3 Phases

WYTEP has been in action for quite a long time, almost 20 years. It has been implemented in three phases, each phase providing valuable lessons in the planning of a subsequent phase.

Phase I ran from 1984 to 1989
Covered 11 districts of Karnataka – Belgaum, Raichur, Chitradurga, Bijapur, Kodagu, Dharwar, Mandya and Uttarakannada. The budget for this Phase was 35.7 million Danish Kroners; the support came largely from the Danida mission in India.

Staffing the agricultural extension services with women extension officers who could reach farm women directly
Establishment of training centres with facilities for farmwomen to undergo residential training
Follow-up of trained farmwomen with extension support services (women extension officers in each taluk)
Organizing of farmwomen groups for extension contact; these groups supported with micro-credit for agricultural activities
Building the capacity of women extension officers through staff training, both in the country and in Denmark
Establishment of a Danida Advisory support office with direct funding by the mission.

Phase II extended the activities of the project to 7 more districts, thereby covering the whole of Karnataka

This Phase took up the establishment of training centre facilities in the additional districts and staffing of extension services with women extension officers. Also, additional budgets were included for providing for the micro-credit needs of farmwomen groups, as seed money for the groups

The other components of Phase I such as staff training continued in Phase II also.

Phase two had some interesting differences from Phase I. The Government of Karnataka took over the staffing and establishment costs of the project activities in the old districts and Danida funding was limited to the new district activities and the advisory support office activities. Thus the funding for phase II was shared between GOK and Danida.

The overall budget for phase II (contributed by GOK and Danida) was around 59.7 Danish Kroners; it covered 32746 farmwomen beneficiaries.

Phase III of the project, while continuing with the general approach of the earlier two phases, made significant departures from them with a view to make the project more sustainable and integrate it with the functioning of the department. In this, it drew on the lessons learnt through Phase I and II implementation of the project. The Phase III budget was 28.3 million Danish Kroners and covered 7345 farmwomen.

‘To secure utilization of women's potential in agricultural production on small and marginal holdings and thereby improving the productivity of these holdings for the betterment of quality of life of all members of the family’.

To this end, some changes in the project approach and several new components were added to the project in Phase III.

Taking into account the farm women in the state who need to be reached and that if this is left only to the 230 AAO (FW) in the agriculture department, it would take years for even a one time contact. In order to reach these large numbers and also in line with the recent `Women in Development' perspective of the government, it was felt that rather than having more women staff in a separate cadre, gender needed to be mainstreamed i.e. the general extension system and its field extension team should shoulder the responsibility for farm women extension services. This way the farmwomen's access to extension services would increase manyfold as the extension services (staffed by men and women) were widespread and well staffed. - 10 - This meant extensive staff training activity to make them `gender sensitive' – understanding the needs of farmwomen and catering to these needs; the training was to cover all the staff of the department at various levels – managerial, supervisory and field staff. The staff training became a major component of the project in this phase.

a) In order to address some of the technical problems of the small and marginal holdings in activities performed by farmwomen, funds for technology development were earmarked at the state level and district level. These were to look into and solve problems faced by farmwomen in specific crop cultivation (vegetables, fruits, flowers, minor millets...), animal husbandry/poultry and so on. The need for providing such a fund was based on the feeling that most technical research is aimed at mainstream technical issues related to major crops and commercial activities.

The fund at the district level was Rs.50, 000 per year per districts, to be managed by a district technical advisory committee, which had representation of agriculture from research stations, extension staff and representatives from farmwomen groups. This committee would identify technical problems faced by farmwomen in the district and get it looked into by a competent research body. The fund could also be used for identifying relevant technologies that have proved there worth elsewhere (like pest control, seed treatment, backyard production of organic manure/pesticide, small labour saving or drudgery reducing implements and so on.) and disseminate information about these, including demonstrations of such technologies to popularise them.

At the State level, the fund (Rs.500000 per year) would take up problems that are occurring in several districts or which need more extensive research. (Example – the coconut crop disease or groundnut crop disease which were responsible for several crores of losses to farmers in the years 99-01). This fund was to be managed by a state level technical advisory committee, with scientists from agricultural universities, progressive farmers and agriculture department officials.

b) Another components under this were to provide an opportunity for farmwomen to foray into value addition and agro-enterprise activities, which would add to their income. Select Farmwomen groups were to be provided Rs.20, 000 to pilot such activities. (An indicative list of activities undertaken under this are appended)

With the 73rd amendment to the constitution, the responsibilities for managing rural services and facilities was to be devolved to local self-governance bodies; in this case the grama panchayats which are the lowest rung in the three tier PRI structure. But in reality, most panchayats concerned themselves with only some issues like roads, drains, buildings, beneficiary identification for poverty alleviation and housing schemes and so on.

With the objective of making panchayats take interest in farm women activities and support services needed by them, a fund was piloted - `the gram panchayat fund' which would make Rs.25, 000 available to select GPs to utilize in creating facilities and offering services needed by the farm women in that gram panchayat (examples – purchase of machinery to process crops, offer veterinary services at times convenient - 11 - to women, build community assets like farm ponds, crop hulling mill, pulverizes, grinding machines)These were to be owned by the gram panchayats and operated and managed by them, with a small service fee collected for maintenance sustainability. This was envisaged as an effort in ` engendering the gram panchayat budget' in a critical sector like agriculture.

Planning, implementation and monitoring capacity building of the agriculture department -

Since the project was in its third and final phase, with Danida planning to withdraw support to the project (which had received support for over 20 years), building the capacity of the department to be responsive to and offer sustained services to the farm women in the state even after the completion of the project was an important goal. Towards this, adequate funds were earmarked for staff training, establishing monitoring systems and information/databases. For example, a survey to look into the status of the farm women groups formed in the earlier years, was taken up by the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit of DOA

An important component of this capacity building activity has been the training of the Women Extension officers of WYTEP in Denmark in the NORDIK agricultural academy through a diploma course. Over 80 officers of the DOA have been trained in this course over the three phases in the last 14 years.

More recently, Danida has included officers from the General Extension System also to undergo training in Denmark, with the objective of mainstreaming gender concerns in the GES.

In addition, capacity building activities are taken up in-country also, on a diverse range of technical, supervisory and developmental issues related to the project, through institutions like MANAGE (Hyderabad), IMAGE (Chennai), MYRA DA (Karnataka), SEARCH (Karnataka), IRMA (Gujarat).

WYTEP Project Achievements in terms of extensive coverage of farm women or quantitative targets achieved may not be impressive. What it has achieved in terms of laying a sound foundation for farm women services is to be noted. The organisation based for the future activities in this sector is to be acknowledged.

WYTEP is a project impacting on the technical Training and Extension needs of Farmwomen in Karnataka.

Women, especially rural women hardly get the opportunity to undergo any kind of training or formal course for skill development; much of their learning is from hands-on experience or from watching others. Their knowledge and skills in farming activities too learnt this way.

In the project, it was felt that if information on new agricultural technologies had to be disseminated to women, it should happen in the context of a formal/structured learning opportunity; this was provided in the residential training programmes undertaken in the training centres.

There were several agricultural training institutes in the state already, but these did not have separate hostel facilities for farmwomen to come in for a residential course. The project developed infrastructure facilities in 11 ATIs in the first phase and extended it to the establishment of more ATIs in the second phase see the map for details of ATIs and area covered under each –WYTEP empowering women in agriculture.

Infrastructure development included, dormitories, kitchen, dining hall, classrooms, exhibition hall and a small demonstration plot. Each training centre was provided with a mini-bus, which could fetch women from some central point to the ATI. The centres were also staffed with faculty (women officers) who would assess specific training needs of each batch and conduct the programme accordingly.

The Trainees - The farm women who came in for training were selected on certain criteria- they had to belong to small and marginal holding households, aged 20-45, actively involved in farming activities. Each batch of 30 trainees was from a cluster of villages; 4-5 women from each village, so that they did not feel isolated being away from home for the first time.

The Training - The training programs were of two kinds – 1.The farmwomen training of 10days duration and 2. The Link workers training are of 5 days duration.

1. The farmwomen training was for a duration of 10 days during which the trainees had both conceptual inputs and demonstrations and learning by doing. They were taken on exposure visits to a nearby research station or farm of progressive farmers etc.

The curriculum focussed on 2 cereals, 1 pulse and 1 oil seed commonly grown in the area. Other allied activities like horticulture, sericulture, animal husbandry; poultry were also covered as subsidiary activities. The trainees were given inputs on `low cost, low risk technologies' for better seed selection and treatment, pest and weed control, crop storage and so on. (See lesson plans for technologies disseminated)

2. The Link worker training was of a somewhat different kind; it selected some women among those who have undergone the 10 day training, women who are articulate and had leadership and initiative, who would be trained to form Farm Women Groups after the training and be a link between the farm women group and the extension workers. -

Extension Services to Farm Women The Extension services for farmwomen was through Assistant Agricultural officers (FW), who would follow-up on the training given in ATIs. For this purpose, one AAO (FW) was located in each taluk.

Pre-seasonal camps,
Result demonstrations,
Method demonstrations
and Provision of mini - kits.

These were carried out at the village level, often on the farms of members of the farm women groups.

The focus was on `low-cost, low-risk technologies' that could be taken up by women easily.

It was found that extension services to women was more effective when it used the group approach rather than through individual contacts, this proved to be both a convenient delivery mechanism for extension inputs as well, as an empowering process for the women.

Following the training in the ATIs, a group of trained women and some untrained women who were interested in improved farming practices were organized into a farm women's group at the village level. These groups were very similar to the SHGs that are well known women's groups, but the FWGs' focus was on farming and not just micro-credit. Their credit activities were for agriculture related expenses – buying seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, storage containers, treatment of cattle, purchase of fodder, feeds and so on.

To motivate the groups to take to thrift and savings leading to microcredit activities, some select groups were given a small seed money which they could rotate. In phase III, stable groups were also selected for getting funds for trying agro-enterprises and agri-business.

The project now has got some women's groups get involved in Activitiues that are both land and non-land based, generating some additional incomes to the women.

The Extension system was by and large staffed by men. The Rural ethos is such that male extension officers would find it difficult to approach women in villages. Besides the T & V system worked with contact farmers who were men.

It was felt that women extension officers would be better to meet farm women and give them extension inputs, interact with them to motivate them to come for training in the ATIs, give extension inputs etc. This would improve the contact base and direct access of farm women to extension services. Thus bringing in women officers at the operational level into the extension services was an important project strategy.

The arrangements for funding was from DANIDA to the Government of India, to the respective State governments which would make available the funds as per approved plan to the DOA.

The projects had two lines of funds flow – Direct Funding ie From Danida to the Danida Advisory office for some items of expenditure and Indirect Funding ie from Danida to the state via GOI for certain other items of expenditure.

The funding varied in the three phases, with the states taking on more of the `nonplan' expenditure in the later phases and DANIDA continuing to support piloted activities and components.

Projects that had significant civil works and equipment costs were more heavily funded like WYTEP in which training centres were built and equipped. The cost of FW training was also more here as they were Institutional training programmes, with statewide coverage

There is often a contention that externally aided projects, which have an implementation set-up somewhat different from the normal government machinery work well till external funds last. After this stops, when it has to fall into the normal implementation mechanism, they cannot be sustained, as the `givens' are very different. This is not to be interpreted as stopping of all project activities when external funding ceases. Rather the activities continue to go on in a differed way – under some other scheme, by the regular departmental set-up, integrated into a state or central scheme.

The DANIDA projects were envisaged to be supported for certain time periods; they got budget neutral extensions in each phase to accommodate delays in implementation or procedural impediments

In 1996, after India's Nuclear Experiment, DANIDA had serious questions about the terms of its Bi-lateral cooperation. It was decided that DANIDA would withdraw from India by 2006 all such development support. Keeping this in mind, all projects made plans for sustainable and gradual withdrawal of Danish support.

Phase III of WYTEP was formulated with these concerns in mind. For example – one of the objectives defined for Phase III was `mainstreaming farm women concerns into the Extension services of the DOA'

Another important strategy for sustainability was in the financing pattern. Budget heads that are recurring/programmatic were funded by the state and Danida funded those that were being piloted or a one-time cost. The overall project budget for Phase III was Rs. 45 crores, of which the GOI's contribution was to the tune of Rs. 41 crores. The project costs were examined year-wise and arranged such that Danida contribution scales down over the 5-year span, whereas the GOK contribution scales up such that by the 5th year, almost 90% of the project costs are met by the state. This way the project was envisaged to be `taken over' both institutionally and financially by the GOK

Sustainability issues come up in an entirely different way when the concern is the women's groups. Here the question is whether the FWGs continue to meet and work after the project closes? Perhaps some of the activities and components that are financed beyond the project period through regular state funds continue. (For example the farmwomen's training and extension activities in groups). But for the groups to continue to be active and functional requires other kinds of support - Continued followup by way of linkages to banks for credit, training institutions for gaining new skills for income-generation and other `women's development programs or schemes' become critical.

In fact, this is what TANWA in TamilNadu has done. They have a Women's development Program called ` Magalir Thittam' implemented by the Women's development Corporation that has taken the TANWA women's groups under their fold, providing them with forward and backward linkages. Conversely, the groups formed under that scheme are now getting training in farm related skills by the women officers of the agriculture department. TANWA has provided Entrepreneurial training to all TANWA groups to take up land based and non-land based income generation programs. Further, the Link-leaders' training in TANWA has equipped many FW to become trainers to other FW, which has contributed to their status and functional utility in the SHG movement.

So, even though the TANWA as a project is closed, the activities related to it are continued in Tamil Nadu through the regular departmental functioning, integrated with other schemes.

WYTEP has been in action for nearly 20 years. It was a flag ship project of Danida in this sector; it has been the subject of several studies, documentation and evaluations. There have been several Impacts assessment and evaluations on the overall project as well as specific components.

Danida funded projects have a pre-appraisal process, an appraisal mission and midterm as well as an end term evaluation. This had been done for each phase of the projects. Specific studies on the key components like the curriculum, training, impact on poverty, on agricultural productivity, adoption of technology etc has also been done.

By and large, these assessments have hailed the pioneering work of WYTEP that it brought in the training of farmwomen focussing on their productive role in Agriculture. This was a section of the farming community that had not been addressed in extension. And in the eighties, when the Gender issues became central to development discourses, such projects assumed great importance. What makes WYTEP more important is that it looks at the productive role of women in the primary sector and builds up their technical capacity in this.

However, some of the not-so-complimentary evaluations have alleged that the project has not been able to reach a significant number of farmwomen in the state. The following table supports this view.

Table 5: Villages covered by WYTEP in Phases I, II and III of the project - 26 -

A major study undertaken by the Danish/EEC expressed disappointment about the `poverty alleviation' dimension of WYTEP that it focussed only on the landed, thereby neglecting the landless farmwomen who was equally deserving of such development assistance. However, it was argued by the project planners and personnel that Training and extension projects can benefit only the landed directly, the needs of the landed would have to be addressed elsewhere. It was also pointed that the target group of the project were not really wealthy; as small and marginal farmers dependent on rain, they were vulnerable to the vagaries of nature and could plunge into relative poverty very easily. To that extent the project addressed poverty issues of the poor if not the poorest of the poor.

Several of the evaluations have noted that the project has not maintained good `baseline' data on agricultural productivity of the lands of this target group. Claims of improvement cannot be supported with field data, but tends to be anecdotal, attributing many qualitative and quantitative benefits. Monitoring has been more focussed on whether inputs have been delivered (percentage of budgets utilised, number of women trained, number of training centres built, number of field demonstrations conducted etc), rather than process used or impact made. The TANWA's case studies of farmwomen is a better example of how these can be captured

Over time, the project has had two related but separate agenda – meeting the extension service needs of farmwomen and empowerment of women. Both these have been met to some extent the project activities (training and Extension) have direct informational inputs and for the farmwomen the process of undergoing formal training and belonging to a group that is acknowledged by the agricultural department is quite empowering.

For the department, the project has provided an effective `delivery mechanism' to provide inputs and an appropriate forum to address gender needs in agriculture.

The impact of the project in terms of replication elsewhere is also impressive. WYTEP led to the formulation of similar projects in TamilNadu (TANWA), Orissa (TEWA) and Madhya Pradesh (MAPWA) with Danish support. Later the Dutch supported similar projects in Andhra Pradesh (ANTWA) and Gujarat (TWA).

The latest study on the project (and on the similar projects in other states) undertaken in May2003 can be read from the Web site of the Danida Evaluation unit – http://www.evaluation.dk or WWW.um.dk