International Journal of Social Science & Economic Research
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Title:
Gendered Participation in Pre-Harvest and Post-Harvest Agriculture: A Comparative Study of Punjab, Kerala, and Uttarakhand

Authors:
Anika Poddar

Journal: International Journal of Social Science and Economic Research (IJSSER)
ISSN: 2455-8834
Volume: 11
Issue: 10
Publication Date: October 2026
DOI: 10.46609/IJSSER.2026.v11i10.016

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Anika Poddar
Modern High School International

MLA 8
Poddar, Anika. "Gendered Participation in Pre-Harvest and Post-Harvest Agriculture: A Comparative Study of Punjab, Kerala, and Uttarakhand." Int. j. of Social Science and Economic Research, vol. 11, no. 10, Oct. 2026, pp. 5633-5655, doi.org/10.46609/IJSSER.2026.v11i10.016. Accessed Oct. 2026.
APA 6
Poddar, A. (2026, October). Gendered Participation in Pre-Harvest and Post-Harvest Agriculture: A Comparative Study of Punjab, Kerala, and Uttarakhand. Int. j. of Social Science and Economic Research, 11(10), 5633-5655. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.46609/IJSSER.2026.v11i10.016
Chicago
Poddar, Anika. "Gendered Participation in Pre-Harvest and Post-Harvest Agriculture: A Comparative Study of Punjab, Kerala, and Uttarakhand." Int. j. of Social Science and Economic Research 11, no. 10 (October 2026), 5633-5655. Accessed October, 2026. https://doi.org/10.46609/IJSSER.2026.v11i10.016.

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ABSTRACT:
This paper assesses the role and position of women in pre-harvest and post-harvest agricultural activities in India through a comparative study of three states: Punjab, Kerala, and Uttarakhand. Across all three, women carry the majority of the burden of manual farm operations, yet exercise little economic agency or choice over the income their labour generates. In Punjab, mechanisation displaced women out of crop farming without giving them the agency to move into higher value sectors, while in Uttarakhand women's entrepreneurial capacity remains constrained by their weaker socioeconomic position. Kerala's Kudumbashree collectives show that group organisation can partially bridge this gap, though these groups continue to cultivate informally leased land with no legal claim to it. The underlying constraint across all three states is the lack of asset ownership and resulting absence of economic agency, since land records are almost entirely in men's names and formal credit requires documented ownership, leaving women without the paperwork that would formalise their work and open access to finance. Policy must therefore go further, granting women the ability to own assets in their own names and recognising their contribution to agriculture.

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