Comparison of extent of participation of urban, rural and tribal farm women in post-harvest activities

Abstract

Farm women constitute so significant part of working women population in our country that it necessitates a fuller understanding of their status and role not only as they now are but as they may be in future. They participate in most of the agricultural operations like sowing, irrigation, harvesting, dairy management, weeding, winnowing application of fertilizers, planting, threshing. After receiving the harvested crops in the home, it is a woman who carries all the post-harvest tasks. The study was carried out from two agro–climatic zones of Maharashtra. Nanded district was selected from Central Maharashtra Plateau zone and Nagpur district was selected from Central Vidarbha zone. This research consist sample of 410 farmwomen from urban, rural and tribal areas. The respondents were interviewed personally. In the present investigation, extent of participation of urban, rural and tribal farmwomen was compared. Extent of participation was measured as whether the activity was completely performed by the respondent or partially. The results showed that urban farmwomen were completely involved in the activities post-harvest processing of the produce at household level, retention of the produce for consumption and storage while they were performing the activities threshing and engagement of labourers partially. Rural women were found to be involved completely in the activities post-harvest processing of the produce at household level and retention of the produce for consumption whereas they were partially involved in the activities threshing and management of surplus produce at commercial level. It was noticed that tribal farmwomen were completely performing the activities post-harvest processing of the produce at household level, retention of the produce for consumption and management of the surplus produce at household level whereas their partial involvement was in retention of the produce for sale, post-harvest processing of produce at commercial level and management of surplus produce at commercial level