Status and awareness of farm women about drudgery reducing technologies in Rajgarh district, Madhya Pradesh

Abstract

The present study was an attempt to find out the present status and awareness of 120 farm women about drudgery reduction technologies in Rajgarh district, Madhya Pradesh. Findings revealed that majority of the farm women were of middle age and illiterate. Trend of nuclear type of families existed which were of medium size. Most of the farm women belonged to OBC category having annual family income of less than Rs 1,00,000 as majority were marginal farmers with small size of herds. Very few of them (10.00%) were having completely Pucca houses. They had low level of mass media exposure and low contact with extension personnel as well as extension institutions. Maximum participation of farm women was found in animal dung collection and its disposal (90.50%) followed by picking of vegetables (88.50%), storage (85.00%), manual harvesting (82.00%), weeding (80.00%) and drying and cleaning of grains (80.00%). Among all the activities, manual harvesting was considered as drudgery-prone operation/ difficult to perform activity by 66 per cent respondents followed by weeding (63.00%), threshing (60.00%), picking of vegetables (44.00%) and thinning (43.00%). Majority (82.50%) of farm women had low level of awareness about drudgery reducing tools and implements. The variables like educational qualification, annual income, mass media exposure level, contact with extension personnel/agents were positively and had high significant correlation with their awareness index regarding drudgery reduction tools whereas the variables like age and family size were observed negatively correlated.