Socio-economic status and gender participation in wheat production system of Uttarakhand

Abstract

Agriculture for decades had been associated with the production of basic food crops. Next to rice, Wheat is the most important food grain of India. It is grown on 13% of the cropped area of India. In Uttarakhand wheat is the major cereal crop of rabi season accounting for 4% of the total area under cereals. The annual wheat production of the state is around 8 lakh metric tonnes from an area of 3.79 lakh hectares. Farmers (both women and men) from different the present study was undertaken in hill ans tarai zone of Uttarakhand. Data were collected from 30 families from five adopted villages through an interview schedule. Main objective of the study was to assess the socioeconomic status, level of gender participation and technology usage satisfaction under different activities in wheat production system. Result shows that 43.33 % respondents were belongs to above 45 years of age only 36.66 % were illiterate. They all were hindus and having less than 2 acres of land and their main occupation was agriculture. Among all 40 % respondents earned the annual income between 1 to 2 lakhs annually and they were involved in rearing of animals from commercial ( 93.33 %) and domestic (100%) purpose. However in level of gender participation, it was found that land preparation, fertilizer application, sowing, weeding,harvetsing, storage and transportation were the activities performed in cultivating wheat crop. In result equal participation of men and women respondents followed by female domination was observed only watching/ bird scaring (100%), crop cutting (100 %) and picking/ bundling (16.66 %). Whereas ploughing by tractor, levelling, broadcasting of seeds were done by all the male respondents exclusively. While women domination was observed in only weeding (100 %), picking (100 %) and bundling (83.33 %) activities. It was also found that nearly 50 % of the respondents were not satisfied with the avaliable technologies, used in various activities of wheat production system. Therefore, need was felt to introduce some gender friendly technological interventions that may help them to carry out their farm activities.