Socio-economic profile of hill women in relation to farm activities in Himachal Pradesha case study

Abstract

In hills, women bear the brunt of general scarcity of fuel and fodder at household level. In lean periods, women are required to spend more time to collect increasingly scarce resources from distant locations. An attempt has, therefore, been made to analyze fodder deficit and how it plays a role in farm women activities. Stratified multistage random sampling technique was used for the sample selection. The average livestock holding of the sample farmers were 5.80 of which bovine and ovine were 82.41 and 17.59 per cent respectively. The fodder balance analysis by fodder types indicated fodder scarcity for the sample households. Deficit for grass, straw and tree leaf fodder were estimated to be 13.17, 54.69 and 14.42 per cent of the total requirement. The overall situation in Himachal Pradesh projects a 31.92 per cent deficit of total fodder requirement. The study shows that the majority of farm women (58 %) were in the age group of 25-50 years and 39 % were illiterate. The association between age and participation in different activities shows that farm women of middle age group (25-50 years) spent more time for different activities than those of two other age groups. The overall time spent by the farm women of different age groups i.e. <25, 25-50 and >50 years were 15.19, 18.10 and 15.16 hours per day respectively and they spent 29.95, 31.03 and 31.20 per cent of their time for animal husbandry activities including fodder collections. Illiterate, below and above middle educated farm women spent 16.95, 16.45 and 15.05 hours per day for day to day activities of which 29.06, 32.50 and 32.60 per cent of total time for animal husbandry activities. There was no difference in time spent between illiterate and above middle educated groups of farm women. It is recommended to cultivate tree and fodder species in nearby areas, so that the farm women can use their time in other productive activities