Enhancing Income of Rural Women through Capacity Building – A Case Study of Dried Mango Slices in Malihabad, Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

This study reports income enhancement of rural women by their capacity building in Malihabad tehsil of Uttar Pradesh. The study is based on 60 farm women selected from small, marginal and landless households who were provided training for production of improved quality of dried mango slices, commonly known as khatai. The intervention included use of mango peeler, solar dehydrator, preservative and marketing of produce through an NGO. This led to enhancement of income to the tune of 51.0 per cent in small, 50.6 per cent in marginal and 47.6 per cent in landless farm families. The use of mango peeler enhanced slice recovery by 4.5 per cent and reduced time in peeling mango by 26.5 per cent over the traditional method. The use of solar dehydrator enhanced temperature by 8–10 ºC over ambient temperature which helped in fast and uniform drying of slices. The mango slices produced through improved method contains lower were of superior quality with moisture-content (8.4%) and non-enzymatic browning (0.4) and high titrable acidity (21.3%) and total phenol (0.2 g/100g) as compared to the traditional produce.