We continue to look at work women farmers do, what counts, and what still does not. This is an excerpt of two profiles of landowning women farmers - Lilykutty Pius, a Roman catholic farmer from Kerala and Suhasini Hayet, a tribal farmer from West Bengal - from K Saradamoni's work 'Filling the rice bowl'. These are a few of their conclusions from the surveys held in 1991 in 28 villages across India.

Number of labour households where women are mainly responsible for the upkeep of the household is significantly high.

Women in labour households start working and earning to help the family quite early in life.

They also keep working in the labour market at an advanced age.

There is gender specificity to tasks in farms, especially in paddy production and processing.

Women’s managerial abilities on farms are largely ignored.

Women’s contribution is crucial to both farm production and to the household. Women can’t be treated as marginal, temporary and insignificant.

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