Promotion of Low-cost Package of Technologies for Drudgery Mitigation in Turmeric Production System

Abstract

Major role of farm women in the turmeric production system in Marathwada region was found to be in planting rhizomes, weeding, harvesting and cleaning activities. Ploughing, forming ridges, irrigation are performed solely by male farmers. Whereas participation of farm women in earthing up activity was 85 per cent, it was followed by fertilizer application (83%). Majority of the activities such as planting, earthing up, harvesting in turmeric production system were performed manually. Data on time spent by the female workers in performing different activities in turmeric production system indicated that maximum time-consuming activity was hand weeding (84 man-days/ season) followed by earthing up (63 man-days/ season) and cutting, sorting and cleaning roots (56 days/ season). As per the work demand score, all the activities performed in turmeric production system were very time demanding and very exhaustive as per the psychological feeling of the farm women. Earthing up is an important intercultural operation which is normally carried out twice or thrice during the crop season, accompanied by weeding and side dressing the crop with fertilizers. No tool or implement is used by farmers for earthing up activity. All the farmers were unaware of the hand-operated machines available for earthing up activity. After performing these activities continuously for 6 h, major health problems of the farm women reported were burning sensation to the skin, skin peeling and allergy. Hence, earthing up tool (Sawdi) small digging tool (Ukari), set of five finger guards (Nakhalya) for planting rhizomes, drying tool (wooden rake) (for making upside down while drying turmeric fingers), sulbha bag for fertilizer application, mittens for cleaning and sorting and new khurpi for weeding were developed and tested. The ergonomic assessment revealed that the physiological cost of selected activities performed by farm women in existing and improved method was same but the perception of workload was found to be reduced (13-32%) in an improved method. All the developed technologies used by farm women in the turmeric production system for planting, earthing up, fertilizer application and drying were successful in increasing space of work. In all these activities, the output was significantly increased by 10-26 per cent due to the use of developed technologies.