Checklist to Assess the Women Friendliness of the Technology

Abstract

It is realized, the interest of men farmers is dwindling in farming and they are migrating to earn ample income from nonfarming activities. As per NSSO survey (2010), 40% of the men farmers want to quit farming due to less profitability. The Gaon Connection Survey (2019) revealed thatabout 48% farmers don't want the next generation to take up farming.In this situation, women have to look after the household as well as farming activities. Further, the Indian women spend 354 minutes a day, compared to 36 minutes by men on household activities including cooking and child care (Budlender, 2010). Despite the actuality that women are key producers of food, they wrap well behind men in ownership of agricultural land. They also lack access to and control over productive resources like: credit, market, inputs, information, technology, etc. While many of the existing empirical studies and literature on 'women in agriculture' suggest that women do have serious constraints in access to and control over resources such as land, credit, critical farm inputs (improved crop varieties, irrigation, fertilizers, etc.) training, information, marketing services, farm related decision making and agricultural groups Akter, et. al. (2017),Hazel and Agnes (2015), Fletschner and Kenney (2014). Alkire, et. al. (2013). Study says that, if women had provided the same access to productive resources as men, they could boost yield by 20-30%; raising the overall agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5-4%. This gain in production could lessen the number of hungry people in the world by 12-17% (FAO, 2011). Again, women's access to technology has the prospective to urge their economic improvement. However, need based technologies can be familiarized to farmwomen subsequently judging its women friendliness. Keeping this in view, a checklist was developed to assess the women friendliness of the technology.