Assessment of drudgery experience of rural women while performing different farm operations

Abstract

Women share abundant responsibilities to perform wide spectrum of duties both in the home and outside but there participation is considered normal by the society. They are extensively involved in various farm operations like transplanting, weeding, harvesting, processing, marketing and selling of food grains, fruits and vegetables etc. These tasks not only demand considerable time and energy but also are sources of drudgery. Drudgery is generally conceived as physical and mental strain, agony, monotony and hardship experienced by farm women while performing these farm operations. The drudgery prone condition leads to various health and mechanical hazards which creates physical exhaustion fatigue and low productivity. Though various tools and equipment are available for these activities but maximum of them are designed according to requirement of men. This would require the introduction and adoption of drudgery reducing farm technologies to alleviate the sufferings of women in farm operations and to enable them to participate more energetically and enthusiastically. Therefore, All India Co-ordinated research project on Home Science- FRM Component monitored various drudgery related factors which can be used for assessing the health of the farm women. For this purpose, 75 farm women were selected from five different villages of Ludhiana district. The introduced tools were maize sheller, improved sickle and ring cutter. The parameters for assessment of drudgery experience were drudgery scores, Ovako Work Assessment System, Cardiac Strain Index and Angle of Deviation. The results showed significant reduction in these parameters when improved tools were used as compared to traditional tools.