India’s ‘drone sisters’ driving farming and social change

Once a housewife in rural India, Sharmila Yadav always wanted to be a pilot. She is now living her dream somewhat, remotely flying a heavy-duty drone across the skies to cultivate the country’s farmland.

Yadav, 35, is among hundreds of women trained to fly fertiliser-spraying aircraft under the government-backed “Drone Sister” programme.

The scheme aims to help modernise Indian farming by reducing labour costs, as well as saving time and water in an industry hamstrung by its reliance on outdated technology and growing climate change challenges.

It is also a portent of rural India’s changing attitudes towards working women, who have traditionally found few opportunities to join the labour force and are often stigmatised for doing so.

“Earlier, it was difficult for women to step out of the house. They were supposed to do only household chores and look after the children,” said Yadav, a mother of two, after a day’s work crisscrossing a drone through the clear blue sky above a lush green field of young wheat stalks.

“Women who went out for work were looked down upon. They were taunted for neglecting their motherly duties. But now mindsets are changing gradually.”

Yadav was a homemaker for 16 years after marrying her farmer husband, with few job opportunities for women in her small rural hamlet near the town of Pataudi, a few hours’ drive from the capital, New Delhi.

She will pocket 50,000 rupees ($600) after spraying 150 acres (60 hectares) of farmland twice over five weeks, a little over double the average monthly income in her native Haryana state.

But she said her new occupation was not just a “source of income” for her. “I feel very proud when someone calls me a pilot. I have never sat in a plane, but I feel like I am flying one now,” she said.

Yadav is among the first batch of 300 women trained by the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO), the largest manufacturer of chemical fertilisers in the country.

The women trained as pilots are given the 30kg (66-pound) drones for free along with battery-run vehicles to transport them.

Other fertiliser companies have also joined the programme, which aims to train 15,000 “drone sisters” across the country.

“This scheme is not just about employment but also empowerment and rural entrepreneurship,” said Yogendra Kumar, the marketing director of IFFCO.

A little more than 41 percent of rural Indian women are in the formal workforce compared with 80 percent of rural men, according to a government survey last year.