Abstract
Are sustainable transitions in agriculture necessarily women-friendly, or can they also increase gender imbalance? The mutual shaping of gender relations and technologies is an area that has been inadequately studied by sustainability transition scholars. This article investigates how the introduction of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) affected gender roles in rice cultivation, focusing on weeding practices in three villages in Odisha, India. The introduction of mechanical weeders under SRI led to complex shifts in labour divisions in weeding, traditionally women’s work. Deep-rooted gender relations hindered the reworking of wage and employment norms for men and women involved in weeding. Mechanical weeding did not shift women’s labour uniformly to men’s, while instances of women using mechanical weeders varied across villages, seasons and models. Technology was shaped locally by environmental conditions, sociocultural norms, weeder models, extension institutions and negotiations involving the agency of women. Sustainable transitions in agriculture are not gender-neutral, and they must be carefully integrated to avoid reinforcing existing disparities. The study provides insights into the need to invest in collective experimentation for longer-term societal transformations.
Keywords
Introduction
The gender dimensions of changes brought about through sustainable transitions have been inadequately studied. Sociotechnical transitions impact rural livelihoods significantly, and while the broader case has been made for gendering agriculture and attending to the unequal access to resources experienced by women due to climate change (Chanyau and Rosenberg 2023), their practical translation in farmers’ fields can be messy as the intended change encounters gender prejudices and stereotypes during implementation. Agroecology, which is seen by many as the key to sustainable transitions in agriculture, has been posited as creating better opportunities for women by integrating diverse work tasks and specific forms of knowledge, while its implementation can deconstruct and render inequality and injustice more visible (Seibert et al. 2019). Feminist concepts of intersectionality and participatory praxis are considered central to mobilising agroecology (Bezner Kerr et al. 2019). But how do such practices translate on farmers’ fields? Are sustainable agricultural practices perforce friendly to women, or could they even displace women from their traditional roles? If so, how do women negotiate and shape such practices?
In this article, we explore the dynamic interplay of gender and technology caused by the introduction of an agroecological innovation, the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), in three villages of Odisha, India. Through an ethnographic study, we seek to show how women could also be negatively impacted if their uneven access to information, technology and extension is not taken into account and gendered wage relations are not considered.
We begin by highlighting the critical role of women in weeding and how SRI potentially transforms it. In the second section, we describe our methods and the three villages where SRI was introduced across variations in topography, communities, culture and cultivation practices. We then describe how these practices were transformed in SRI and non-SRI fields in the third section, and follow that up with an analysis of the emergent weeding and gendered labour patterns in the fourth section. We conclude by arguing for a rethinking of gender and technology in rice cultivation and closer attention to its implications for sustainability transitions in agriculture.
Weeding, we show, is influenced by interactions of men and women with weeds, weather, rice fields and social practices related to gender-wise labour engagement practices and wage rates. Sustainable transition scholars and practitioners should go beyond introducing a technology package but also aim to design, plan for and facilitate a new and inclusive engagement with women in keeping with their central roles in agriculture and their contributions to sustainable change.
Women and Weed Management in Rice Cultivation
Historically, women have been integral to rice cultivation, contributing 27%–84% of the labour, depending on local cultures (Kada and Kada 1985; Paris et al. 2010). Landscape and natural resources are gendered in common speech and much of women’s multifarious tasks in agriculture and allied activities are rarely recognised as work. While these roles often reflect patriarchal ideology that determines gender relations and value ascribed to different spheres of work, it is also recognised that there is significant agency and bargaining that shapes women’s work (Krishna 2005; Agarwal 1997). Despite working for long hours in challenging conditions, women remain largely unpaid and underpaid, less fed and less recognised, with limited access to resources. Despite the increasing feminisation of agriculture, especially in Asia, which contributes 90% of global rice production, this disparity persists (Kishtwaria and Rana 2012; Vent et al. 2016; Maclean et al. 2013; Unnevehr and Stanford 1985; Agarwal and Herring 2015; Pattnaik et al. 2018). Weed management in rice farming is crucial, as it is estimated that weeds can cause 44%–96% crop losses if not controlled. Here, weeds are nothing but other uncultivated plants grown in the same ecosystem where rice is planted. Besides competing with crops for nutrients, light and water, weeds also host major pathogens and insects that further damage crops (Ampong-Nyarko and De Datta 1991). In many Asian countries, including India, women continue to play a crucial role by manually weeding to prevent such significant crop losses.
The introduction of SRI in India in the early 21st century involved recommending modified transplanting methods, including the planting of single, young seedlings, widely spaced, in non-flooded fields. This low-density transplanting is conducive to profuse weed growth. To control this, it is recommended to weed the fields 3–4 times after transplanting, at intervals of 10–12 days (Uphoff 2017). Manual weeding can effectively reduce grass populations but is impractical as it entails multiple rounds and significant physical effort and cost. Chemical weed control is potentially possible through the use of herbicides but is not recommended for smaller farms due to environmental and health risks. Agencies involved in extending SRI to farmers in Odisha have recommended mechanical weeding as an environmentally safer and cost-effective option (Prasad et al. 2007). This involves using a manual tool, typically made of metal, and furnished with rotors that churn the soil surface and chop and bury weeds.
The use of tools and machines in agriculture has a masculine image (Brandth 2006), including in South Asia. The transition to mechanical weeding in SRI presents an interesting activity through which to understand the gender transformations involved in a transition to more sustainable agricultural practices. These changes have, however, been relatively neglected in scholarly discussions on SRI, although the topic has been highlighted in a few cases (Uphoff et al. 2002; Berkhout et al. 2015; Krupnik et al. 2012; Hansda 2017; Styger and Uphoff 2016). A fundamental shift in the weeding task from women to men is indeed reported in many studies of SRI (Kabir and Uphoff 2007; Sinha and Talati 2007; Adhikari et al. 2010; Adusumilli and Bhagya Laxmi 2011; Varma 2018; Senthilkumar et al. 2008; Thiyagarajan and Gujja 2013). These new recommendations have different effects for different groups of women (Gathorne-Hardy et al. 2016; Hansda 2017). Here arises the question of what shapes discrete processes of change in particular cases. There is a need to examine these gender implications in specific local contexts. With this background, this study investigates: (a) how does SRI change the gender division of labour in weeding, and (b) what are the effects of these changes on SRI in diverse agro-ecological and social contexts?
We draw upon Feminist Technology Studies (FTS) to interpret the gendered nature of farming as a ‘performance’ (Richards 1993). Bray (2007) and Zwarteveen (2008, 2012) have traced the evolution of FTS perspectives from viewing technology as either an empowering tool (Technophilia) or a disempowering product of patriarchal force (Technophobia), and they opine that no technology is intrinsically either empowering or disempowering. Rather, technology and gender relations shape each other mutually. Instead of viewing women as the end-users of a technology, women engage with their social and material environments, influencing and being influenced by the technological design and its practical performance.
Materials and Methods
Prior to the selection of the three villages, exploratory visits were carried out in Odisha state in India in 2011 to look for variations in SRI practices and labour relations between regions. Besides other factors, the gendered nature of labour engaged in rice-growing activities, including weeding practices, was considered. Three research sites were chosen with significant diversity in local weeding practices, the types of mechanical weeders introduced, the ownership and sharing practices of weeders, and the attitudes of extension agencies towards gender issues during the promotion of SRI. The three villages selected were Rajanapalli in the coastal Ganjam district, Gunjigaon in the hilly and forested Kandhamal district and Kokariguda in the mountainous Koraput district (see Figure 1).
Agriculture is mainly rainfed there with some supplementary irrigation facilities. Rice, grown mostly for household consumption, is cultivated mainly during the Kharif season, besides cultivating other crops in different elevations in the hilly and mountainous areas. Selling of surplus rice is not a general practice in Kokariguda, whereas hardly much rice is left in Gunjigaon to sell, as rice is used as a medium of exchange to buy commodities, to prepare customary meals for wage labourers and also rice is paid as a wage. In Rajanapalli, some farmers sell the surplus rice in the local market or take it to the government Mandi (public procurement system).
Field research was carried out during the 2011–12 season. Twenty households from each village were selected randomly using a lottery method from the list of farmers who were identified as SRI practitioners in a baseline survey conducted in 2011. The selected households cultivated rice in 78 plots in Rajanapalli, 276 plots in Gunjigaon and 191 plots in Kokariguda in 2012 (total: 545 plots). Data were also collected through a combination of close observations, measurements and reconstruction of pre-SRI weeding practices through interviews with SRI and non-SRI farmers.
A technographic approach (Jansen and Vellema 2011; Glover 2018) informed the data collection methods. Technography aims to understand technology as it is practised by people and task groups in specific social and cultural contexts. It explores the mutual shaping of tools, techniques and practices. Focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted to gather information on weeding practices, weeders and gender-wise labour division. Participant observation, semi-structured interviews with selected households and field-level extension agents, and storytelling were used to gain insights into practices, motivations and experiences. Data were recorded in notebooks, computer files, photographs and video recordings, and later analysed.
Weeding Practices: Conventional and SRI
Traditionally, weeding was done during August and September (Bhadrab) around the receding time of monsoon. Farmers traditionally kept the fields flooded after transplanting for around 1 month to suppress weeds. In Rajanapalli and Kokariguda villages, women would then carry out manual weeding, beginning about a month after transplanting. In Gunjigaon, weeding in rice was not common. Where weeding was done, it typically involved small teams of between one and three women.
The work would take several days under hot and humid conditions. It required about 130–60 person-hours of women’s time to weed 1 acre, depending on factors like the ages and experience of the labourers, the number of working hours in a day, soil conditions, weed population and diversity and water availability. Women working in groups would chat and joke to ease the drudgery. Farmers often lack cash to hire labour when weeding begins. Labour availability is also limited, as women are busy with other crops or completing rice transplanting work, or they may be absent due to the prevalence of illness during the wet season. For these reasons, hired labour is rarely employed for weeding.
Women labourers in 2012 were paid ₹60 per day in Rajanapalli (for 6–7 hours of weeding), which was less than the local wage used to be paid for transplanting. In Kokariguda, the wage rate was ₹40 per day, both for weeding and transplanting work. Lunch and alcohol were provided for the older women labourers. As noted above, weeding was not common in Gunjigaon and hence no wage rate is mentioned.
With the introduction of SRI, new weeding methods were added to existing weeding practices. The low-density transplanting recommended in SRI, combined with the avoidance of deep and continuous flooding, may result in quicker and denser weed growth, necessitating early and frequent weeding, which is recommended to be done with a mechanical weeder. This tool also aerates the soil, benefiting soil life and plant growth.
A mechanical weeder is a metal spiked roller device that runs in the muddy field in a push-pull rhythm, to cut, uproot and bury weeds, enhance soil aeration and reduce drudgery and time needed for weeding. Two major variants of weeders were found in the villages during the study period: the Cono Weeder (also referred to as the Star Cono Weeder) and the Mandva Weeder (see Figure 2). There were variations within these models, as the weeders were procured from different sources by extension organisations or provided by the government. Weeders typically have one rotor (Mandva) or three rotors (Cono) arranged in line behind a metal sled. This assembly is connected to a rod and handlebar and operated by a person pushing the device through the field in an upright position.
Left: Mandva Weeder; Middle: Different Types of Weeders Observed in Gunjigaon; Right: (Star) Cono Weeder.
The Mandva Weeder was born during a participatory workshop by civil society organisations in Southern India to develop a labour and gender-friendly tool suitable for the SRI. Designed by farmer-engineer Mr Kishan Rao and named after his village, Chinna Mandva, it has gained acceptance among women farmers in Odisha (Prasad and Jagannath 2016). In contrast, the Cono Weeder was developed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the 1960s after the Green Revolution and modified by many universities later. While various types of weeders have existed both before and after this period, the Mandva and Cono Weeders are among the most discussed ones in Odisha (Figure 2). In the last one decade, the use of power weeders and weedicides has increased, especially in rice and wheat, though not found in the selected villages during the study period.
The operation of weeders requires seedlings to be transplanted in straight lines in well-levelled fields. Levelling helps in maintaining a thin and even water layer, the optimal condition for weeder use. The devices are practically ineffective in completely dry or very wet conditions. Uniform field levelling, usually done by men, requires extra labour during pre-season preparation. Weeds that grow very close to rice plants must be removed manually to avoid damaging the crop. Weeders are also less effective against taller and deeper-rooted weeds.
Previously, farmers either did not weed or conducted manual weeding once after transplantation. However, with the introduction of new practices in the SRI, as the need for multiple weedings arose, farmers had to reschedule their weeding strategies. This involved a combination of manual and mechanical weeding, engaging both men and women. Scheduling is contingent not only on technological recommendations but also on factors like water availability, weather, weed ecology, labour availability and activities in other rice plots and non-rice plots. The complexities of adapting to these new practices are often not well understood and well addressed or overlooked in SRI discussions. All these adjustments may have gender implications to various extents and in different ways.
Weeding and Gendered Labour Patterns
Generally, in SRI, weeding starts 10–15 days after transplanting, often in late July or early August (Shravan), when rainfall is still intense. This timing can lead to delays in weeding if rainfall is either too heavy or too scanty to operate weeders. Heavy rain and scanty rain can both impede weeding being done at the right time, so grasses grow bigger. When weeds grow too tall, mechanical weeding becomes challenging, and women typically take over with manual weeding.
In the 2012 season, weeding was done in 333 of the 545 rice plots (61%) in the three villages. A second round of weeding was done only in fields under SRI and under a method known as line planting (i.e., planted in one-directional lines rather than two-directional grids), while a third weeding was done in a few SRI plots in Gunjigaon only. Mechanical weeding in one (line) or two (grid) directions was both observed. The number of weeding rounds was reduced in 2012 compared to 2011, apparently due to the weather, which was significantly wetter than the previous year.
The weeding patterns observed across villages are summarised in Table 1. There are eight variations of SRI and weeding practice across the three villages. This diversity of weeding patterns is rarely accounted for in reports of SRI’s uptake and spread. Rajanapalli and Kokariguda had four variations in common: farmers weeding only manually or only mechanically, farmers weeding first manually and then mechanically, and farmers weeding first through mechanical means and then manually.
Gunjigaon had five variations. Some fields saw no weeding at all (as was traditional in that village), some were weeded manually, a few were weeded mechanically once only, some twice and a few thrice. It is remarkable that Gunjigaon, where weeding was not very common before SRI was introduced, saw the widest range of weeding practices under SRI. No weeding in conventional rice is a typical feature of Gunjigaon, which was an outcome of various reasons, including a disproportionate land–women labour ratio.
Variations in the number, type of weeding and engagement of men and women in weeding arose mainly due to the extension agency’s gender-inclusive strategy, provisioning of weeders and institutional membership of women, which created an enabling environment for the participation of both. However, plot-level soil-water conditions also allowed some farmers multiple weeding and some did not allow them to do so. Environmental dynamics, social dynamics, extension dynamics and technological dynamics shape the variations in weeding practices as is evident in Table 1.
Weeding Patterns Observed Across Methods and Villages.
When trying to understand the gap between the transplanting and subsequent weeding, it was found that the range of gap between transplanting and first weeding varied between less than 10 days and 65 days. The gap between the first weeding and the second weeding varied between less than 10 days and 30 days, and the range of gap between the second and third weeding varied between 5 days and 30 days.
The timing between transplanting and subsequent rounds of weeding varied significantly across methods, seasons and villages. Mechanical weeders were more commonly used when intervals were shorter, and this work could be done by both men and women. With longer intervals, women predominantly performed manual weeding. In 2011, both men and women conducted multiple rounds of mechanical weeding in Rajanapalli and Gunjigaon, while only men operated a weeding device in Kokariguda. By 2012, men in this village also took over the second weeding by using a weeder device. Delays in achieving optimal field conditions caused more weed growth, requiring more force to operate the weeders. In fields where mechanical weeding was not feasible, it was always women who reverted to manual weeding.
The observed changes in weeding practices included changes between genders as well as within genders. Mechanical weeding prominently excluded pregnant and nursing women, and men and women aged older than 60. One woman in Kokariguda remarked that she was scared to use a weeder while pregnant, fearing that the proximity of the metal bar and handles close to her womb might cause harm to her and her child in the event of an accident. However, she did not mind doing manual weeding in a bent position.
When an older woman in Rajanapalli was asked why she was not operating a weeder but did not mind doing manual weeding, she replied:
I am already old. Do you think that I can run behind that machine as these young girls can?
When further asked if she was not comfortable with the standing posture, she remarked:
Yes, it looks easy, but not for old women like me. I have never tried that. Do you think that I just have to stand with that machine? I have to push and pull it in every step when I have to move forward. Don’t you see that the speed of work is different? Do you think that my old body can adjust to this? I am used to doing weeding in a bending position since my childhood. It is painful, but my body can do that. It may be easy for these young girls whose bones are not yet bent like mine.
This dimension, where younger workers were more likely to practise new skills, represents an opportunity for agricultural reskilling through agroecology, in a domain where mechanisation and other changes often involve deskilling (Dutta and Shambu Prasad 2022). Operating weeders was fun for some young men in Kokariguda, while a young woman in Rajanapalli felt that the weeder helped to save time spent on weeding on family farms. A few men avoided mechanical weeding due to concerns about extra workload. Some men and women thought that they might not be able to operate the weeder properly, so they decided to keep away from using weeders.
In summary, the introduction of SRI led to changes in weeding patterns, but not always as recommended by the extension workers. Gender roles also shifted in various ways, with men participating in mechanical weeding, a task traditionally done by women, while women engaged in the operation of a tool, which was typically seen as men’s work. However, these changes were neither linear nor consistent across seasons.
Restructuring Gender in Weeding
Discussions about changing roles between men and women in the three villages were also initiated by the extension agency, in this case, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that acts as an interface between the community and the state. In Rajanapalli, for example, the NGO, run by women, initially focused on women for SRI activities but soon involved men for better decision-making and timely completion of tasks. A member of the NGO noticed a need for separate efforts to engage men in weeding and land levelling and realised that training of hired labourers in weeder operation was needed. In Gunjigaon, the NGO included training for operating mechanical weeders in capacity-building programmes for SRI, in which both men and women participated. The NGOs in Rajanapalli and Gunjigaon distributed weeders and encouraged women active in self-help groups to use the weeders. In Kokariguda, the NGO wanted to achieve the targeted area for SRI as quickly as possible and did not include women in the capacity-building programmes. As a result, women in Kokariguda did not take up mechanical weeding, except for two women who learnt to operate the weeder by themselves.
Discussions about a gender division of tasks often arose in group settings like the village development committees and self-help groups, primarily in Rajanapalli and Gunjigaon. Men in these groups often participated in mechanical weeding out of a sense of social and institutional obligation, encouraged by extension agencies. Such social dynamics did not happen in Kokariguda, where the extension agency worked with men only. Interestingly, this was then given some gender-based explanation by the men, who said they could do mechanical weeding faster and better than women, even suggesting women damaged rice plants while operating the weeder.
Another notable effect, found in Gunjigaon and Kokariguda, was that men’s involvement in mechanical weeding allowed women to spend more time on other crops in the fields higher up on the slopes or collecting forest produce. Also here, men added gender-discriminatory explanations to the task division that had emerged, for example, saying that their participation in mechanical weeding improves yields and benefits the family. In Rajanapalli, men sometimes did mechanical weeding before or after their wage work. In Gunjigaon and Kokariguda, where men generally did not have waged work, mechanical weeding was a new task taken up for the reasons mentioned.
By 2012, men and women could identify the ease or difficulty of operating various weeder models and the conditions in which they worked best. They preferred weeders that were light in weight and worked well on their soil. When weeders were considered to create too much drudgery, women resorted to manual weeding. Despite being promoted as an efficient and light model, the Cono Weeder was less popular than the Mandva models in Odisha.
Drudgery experiences were different for men and women. Men’s increased participation in mechanical weeding added to their workload. Other main tasks of men in the rice fields are ploughing, puddling and levelling. In particular, levelling became more important because an even field makes the operation of mechanical weeders easier. However, a major bottleneck that appeared was the availability of weeders of the preferred type. There were a total of 20 weeders in Rajanapalli, 30 in Gunjigaon and 5 in Kokariguda. Some models of Mandva weeders were popular and comfortable for users, while others were not. The lack of sufficient, well-designed weeders often delayed weeding, forcing women to resort to manual methods. This confirms what Prasad and Jagannath (2016) found about the gender implications of the design of a given tool. The introduction of weeders was perceived very differently in the villages and led to diverse weeding patterns and schedules for the various rice fields.
Negotiating Wages: Intersectionality of Gender and Labour
It is not uncommon during technological transitions to assume all players have equal say in work. Markets often ignore factors that influence the gender division of labour. It takes time for a village society to adjust to a new equilibrium when gender roles and tasks are restructured. When technologies allow both men and women to perform the same tasks, entrenched gender roles and established wage disparities create dilemmas, especially where wage determination is informal and ritualised rather than legally standardised. Addressing these issues requires considering economic, political and social factors to establish wages and employability with new technology. Deep-rooted norms and task-specific gender roles generally prevent men from doing manual weeding. However, as soon as a new weeding method was introduced, involving the mechanical weeders, these fixed routines got shaken up, and a new gender division might emerge, as we clearly saw across the different villages.
What remains, however, is a general wage disparity between men and women and between local and external labourers. By 2012, wage rates for mechanical weeding were not established, leading to the non-use of hired labour for this task. Men occasionally do manual weeding in Rajanapalli and Kokariguda, mainly on family farms, but not as hired labour despite having time. In Gunjigaon and Kokariguda, village leaders set newer wage rates through ritual ceremonies, while in Rajanapalli, rates were negotiated with informed labour groups. The use of hired labourers might help in increasing the area under SRI or doing timely weeding.
During a group discussion, one woman of Rajanapalli remarked:
Women take days to do manual weeding. Men cannot afford to remain absent from higher-paying wage work for so long and hence they do not do it (…). And if men do (manual) weeding, which farmer can pay them so much? But it is alright operating a weeder for few hours in own land.
She highlighted the wage differential comparing 3 days’ wages which was ₹600 for men and ₹180 for women. In Rajanapalli and Kokariguda, men with off-farm jobs typically work on family farms before or after wage work. In Gunjigaon, where weeding is rare and men avoid wage work, their participation in mechanical weeding is balanced with other farm works, so wage issues do not arise. One can understand the issue of the opportunity cost of male family wage labourers from her testimonial.
Gender wage disparities make manual weeding uneconomical, as men prefer higher-paying wage work and use their off-time for family farms, avoiding manual weeding and either prioritising their leisure or using the time for other income-giving activities. Moser and Barrett (2003) highlight the opportunity cost of labour, which is crucial for farmers while considering the adoption of the SRI, who balance the benefits of increased rice production against potential income losses from alternative activities. They also assess the economic viability of SRI by factoring in input costs, yields and labour opportunity costs. Berkhout et al. (2015) review various studies on labour opportunity costs and productivity. The dynamics may vary in contexts where men have limited or no engagement in wage labour.
Mechanical weeding is shaped by social norms and routines in complex and diverse ways. A young woman labourer from Rajanapalli explained:
I learned how to operate a weeder; I can go to do weeding if someone calls me, but I will charge more wage, not 60 rupees a day. And if I am given only 60, I will not work for the same hours. It is just not possible to work for the whole day using the weeder. But I know no one will give me same wage as given easily to a man for the same work.
Despite having a new skill and demand for this service, she was unable to command higher wages during this transition period. Her testimonial reveals that she acknowledges the acquisition of her new skills and her understanding of the market dynamics of gender-biasness in labour, including wage negotiation challenges and gender disparities in wages, social norms and work conditions. This testimonial underscores the systemic gender disparities in agrarian wage structures, where female labour is often undervalued and compensated less than male labour, leading to economic inequities and perpetuating a cycle of gender-based discrimination in agricultural work. No man would work for lower wages typically paid to women for weeding.
Mechanical weeding takes less time than manual weeding, creating challenges for farmers in deciding wage rates when wage asymmetry and differing workdays/hours exist for men and women. This difficulty arises when both genders perform the same work but for different time spans. From the interviews and FGDs, we heard both men and women saying that men could cover a larger area and complete mechanical weeding better due to their physical capacities. A woman farmer of Rajanapalli, who learned weeder operation early, thinks men outperform women in this task. This complicates bargaining for equal pay. However, she proposes that instead of paying the same wage to men and women per unit of time, they should be paid the same wage per unit of area.
Intergenerational gender differences add to this complexity. In manual weeding, both young and elderly women work together and receive the same wage despite differing performances. However, elderly women are less likely to participate in mechanical weeding, reducing their employability, while they continue to find work in manual weeding. In the three villages, tools were collectively owned, but often inadequate to meet the demand. Typically, labourers bring their own tools to work, like a sickle for harvesting or a tractor for ploughing. As a result, it is difficult for an individual labourer to rent a collectively owned tool for personal wage-earning unless a custom-hiring system is in place. New norms of work hours and wages could not be easily fixed. These patterns highlight that mechanical weeding, unlike manual weeding, which remains primarily women’s work, reveals more gendered implications and disparities in work and pay. All these reveal the real-life gender-related complexities during technological transitions.
Rethinking Gender and Technology in Sustainable Transitions
The above account of the introduction of an agroecological innovation like SRI alters weeding practices and gender and labour relations in rice cultivation, though not uniformly. The adoption of mechanical weeders promoted to reduce drudgery and improve efficiency varied significantly between the villages. Farmers prioritised weeding in SRI, but factors like weather, soil conditions and labour availability led to differences in weeding frequency, method and timing. Longer intervals between transplanting and subsequent weeding increased the burden of manual weeding on women, while shorter intervals favoured mechanical methods. Men did not displace women completely due to the introduction of mechanical weeders. The masculine image of the tool initially favoured men but some women found using the tool as well. Environmental conditions, sociocultural norms, strategies for involvement of men and women by extension agencies and the design and availability of weeding tools—all played a role in the newly emerging gender division of weeding.
The introduction of mechanical weeders prompted further discussions and negotiations about gender roles at the household and community levels. Women who were members of active self-help groups were better positioned to negotiate men’s participation in mechanical weeding. Beyond its implications for SRI and rice cultivation, our study shows the importance of addressing gender differentiation in sustainable transitions in agriculture.
First, it goes beyond the standard narrative of all agroecological innovations as women-friendly. Technological interventions are not gender-neutral or automatically empowering or disempowering, but they interact with and can reshape existing social structures. The study demonstrates the need for a closer look at the existing gender relations and make investments in the processes for mainstreaming gender, not just as a slogan, but in the everyday designs and uses of tools and its deployment by extension agencies. Sustainable transitions, often viewed as a technology problem, actually necessarily inherit a lot of the concerns of gender with technology adoption as such transitions have complex gender implications. We need to view sustainable transitions not just as technology upgradation but also as systemic upgradation combining social, environmental and technological elements.
Second, transitions should aim for interventions that empower women. However, rather than mandate these top-down, there is a need to create conditions for women to negotiate and rework wage and other relations. This often happens across seasons at the household and village levels. This requires both a sensitivity to local conditions and a longer-term vision that allows for collective experimentation. It is crucial to involve both men and women in decision-making processes and to address the specific needs and challenges faced by different groups.
Rice epitomises agricultural transition within a broader context of various crops. Insights gained from rice cultivation can apply to other crops, despite differences in production systems. Research shows that challenges and opportunities for sustainability transitions are evident in other crops and processes too. For example, to address urban farming and consumer awareness in India (Chebrolu and Dutta 2021) or in navigating the shifts from conventional to organic farming in relation to sustainable rice (Reganold and Wachter 2016). However, the exploration of sustainable transitions through the gender lens remains limited, and this study contributes to this important, yet, neglected dimension.
Finally, the study has implications for policy and practice. Incorporating user elements, especially women in design, recognition of the gender division of labour and an open discussion about the division of tasks between men and women could impact the uptake of a technology. Weeding, which was traditionally seen as an exclusive women’s domain, underwent changes in the villages through a process of social shaping (Pinch and Bijker 1984) with significant play and negotiation between men and women and at times facilitated by NGOs as extension agencies. This less recognised dimension of enabling agency and facilitating the voice of women in sustainable transitions emerges from the fields of Odisha. As the world prepares to celebrate 2026 as the International Year of Women Farmers and the Indian government promotes advanced technologies through initiatives like ‘Drone Didis’ 2 with more subsidies for women than men, the actual realisation of such lofty goals is contingent on grassroot-level gendered realities and better understanding the interplay between society, technology and the environment.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors are immensely thankful to all the farm households and all others who have helped us during the study and to the anonymous reviewers’ valuable feedback to improve upon the article and to NWO-WOTRO which provided financial support to undertake the study under the auspices of Wageningen University, the Netherlands.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: NWO-WOTRO provided the financial support to undertake the study under the auspices of Wageningen University, the Netherlands (grant number W01.65.328.00).
