Role of Women in Decision Making Regarding Agricultural Activities in Sahibganj District of Jharkhand

Abstract

The women's contribution to the farming sector in respect of participation and decision making has largely been ignored. Though women performed more than four-fifth of agricultural work, their decision were accepted only less than one-third of the case. The present study was conducted in Sahibganj district of Jharkhand. There are 9 block namely Rajmahal, Barharwa, Sahibganj, Taljhari, Borio, Barhet, Mandro, Udhwa and Pathna. Twenty five women from each block were selected, thus making a total sample of 225. To study the extent of decision by rural women in their family, structured interview schedule was administrated in the year 2017 on 225 farm women, who have attended at least 3 training programme at KVK. It was found that the farm women participated in decision making process in each and every farm activities and the elder in the family mainly took decisions. This is not surprising because the joint family system is still prevalent where women have no role to play in decision making. In case of selection of seeds, quality of seeds, type of pesticide, time of harvesting, vaccination, calving of animals, AI, foods of animals, maintenance of tractor/pump set, drudgery reducing implements, fertilizer in fruit plants, distance between two plants and selection of fruit plants, all decision were taken by elder person of the family. In all these cases women's decision was almost negligible. Further, more than 50 per cent of decision in the area of home science were taken by the women such as preservation of fruits and vegetables (84.44%) and food to be cooked (88.44%). The data about income of the family (44.44%) and saving in the family (40.00%) showed that although women earned and saved the money by working in the field but their decisions were still centered to the kitchen only. It was also concluded that in financial matter, the involvement of women was less.