Extent of Rural Women’s Participation in Agricultural Activities

• Main Authors: Muhammad Zakaria Yousuf Hussan, Ejaz Ashraf, Muhammad Luqman, Naveed Iftikhar, Tahir Munir Butt
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Islamic Azad University 2012-03-01
• Series: International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development
• Subjects: Extent; Rural women; Crop production activities; Livestock production activities
• Online Access: http://www.ijamad.com/2(no1)/IJAMAD3-2(1).pdf

Rural women in Pakistan, under a small holding system offarming, play a pivotal role in farming. They actively participatein a range of activities related to crop production and livestockmanagement. Rural women remain busy from dawn to dusk invarious agricultural activities, including pre-harvest, post-harvestand livestock management. Their participation is well dispersedbut less perceived because of insufficient data to show their activeinvolvement in various agricultural activities. Keeping these pointsin mind, this study was designed to explore the extent of women’sparticipation in various agricultural activities in district Bahawalpur(Southern Punjab, Pakistan). A total of 125 rural women wereselected through multistage random sampling technique and interviewed with a well-designed, pre-tested interview schedule,and the data was analyzed using SPSS. The results of the dataanalysis revealed that rural women’s participation level was at thetop (M = 2.87 and SD = 0.42) in picking of cotton while their participation level was found low (M = 1.78 and SD = 0.88) inbroadcasting of seed/fertilizer among different crop productionand management related activities. While on the other hand theirextent of participation was found at the top (M = 2.90 and SD =0.30) in cleaning of animal’s sheds and found low (M = 2.02 andSD = 0.83) in calf rearing among different livestock productionand management which were being performed by rural women.Regarding daily time given by rural women to perform variouscrop production, livestock production and household activitiesmajority of rural women they devote > than 8 hours in a day toperform these activities as reported by 27.2%, 32.8% and 76.8%of the respondents, respectively. It is recommended that nationalcommission should be established to recognize and documentedthe participation of rural women at various national and internationalforums. It is also recommended that women training wing shouldbe established at national level under the supervision of districtadministration to train rural women in different areas of crop andlivestock production so that they can contribute in a better way inthe national economy.