ASSESSING THE CAUSE-EFFECT MECHANISM OF PARTICIPATION OF FARM WOMEN IN AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES IN MADHYA PRADESH

SARITA SINGH¹, SANDEEP CHOUHAN²*, S.R.K. SINGH^3
1Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal
²Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Sehore, M.P.
³ICAR-Agriculture Technological Application Research Institute, Zone VII, Jabalpur
* Corresponding Author : sandeep.chouhanmp@gmail.com

Received : 26-07-2016     Accepted : 23-09-2016     Published : 01-11-2016
Volume : 8     Issue : 53       Pages : 2687 - 2690
Int J Agr Sci 8.53 (2016):2687-2690

Keywords : Participation, Farm women, Rainfed, Agricultural activities, Cause-effect
Academic Editor : Dr Pradip Kumar Sahu
Conflict of Interest : None declared
Acknowledgements/Funding : None declared
Author Contribution : None declared

India is agrarian economy in which agriculture has been the main driving force for growth and gross domestic product of the country. For bringing equity and equality, participation of the work force is deciding factors for speed up the economic growth. 43 % of the world agricultural labour force is women and support for women can increase productivity and revenue by upto 20 percent. Ex-post-facto research design based study was conducted in Gwalior district of Madhya Pradesh. Total 200 farm women were selected randomly and data was collected by personal interview using a pre-tested interview schedule. Analyzed data revealed that according to mean score of the participation, harvesting had highest score (79.66) and ranked first followed by weeding (79.33), cleaning of grain (78.3), storage (76), sowing (75), winnowing (74.66), cleaning of field (72.66), thinning (72), grading (71), marketing (70.66), irrigation (69.33), spray of chemical (68.33), application of fertilizer (67.33), leveling of field (56.66) and ploughing of field (45). However, there was least participation of farm women in operations like ploughing (score 45.00), leveling of field (score 56.00), fertilizer application (score 67.33) and spray of chemicals (score 68.33). These operations were an exclusive domain of males in the area under study. On overall basis, about half (51%) of farm women had medium level of participation in agricultural activities. It could be revealed from [Table-7] that these five variables viz. education status, family size, family type, annual income, and economic motivation taken together explained the variation in participation of farm women in agricultural activities to the extent of 75.78 percent. The farm women are mostly associated with harvesting, weeding and cleaning of seed. Women had less participation in marketing. The study indicates the planners and policy makers for women empowerment should give a serious attention to the given aspects and make the suitable strategy for reducing the drudgery of the women in the more participated areas. This can result into the improving the work efficiency of the farm women which intrun may lead to the health of the households and society.