INVOLVEMENTOF RURAL WOMEN IN BACKYARD DAIRY FARMING AT FARIDPUR SADAR UPAZILLA, FARIDPUR DISTRICT.

Abstract

Rural women play a significant role in livestock sector in Bangladesh.There are many studies conducted on women participation in dairyfarming in different areas of Bangladesh. But so far a veryfew studies have been conducted to know the percentage of rural women engaged in backyard dairying in this study area. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to know the extent of involvement of farm women and other family members in the decision making in relation to feeding, management and health care.

It is a multistage sampling by which 20 farm women were taken keeping in mind some pre-requisite conditions and questionnaires were prepared for easy collection of necessary information in regard to the objective of the study.

The information obtained from the field visit showed that mostly housewives (83.3%) contribute in dairying but most of them (80%) are belongs to 20-40age. Their predominant religion is Islam (80%),(40%)areprimarily educated,(60%)have1-2 acre land, (35%) lived in mixed type of houses with a family,(80%)havefamily member less than 5.

From the collected data it was found that the overall contribution of women is somewhat equal to men in dairying on the study area. It was also observed that in decision making, regarding health care (35%) and feeding (25%) women had lower participation, while the participation of men were 45%&40% respectively. Besides, in case of hygiene maintaining, watering, milking, milk selling, manure disposal land vaccination women had their participation of about 45%, 30%, 45%, 30%, 15% and 30% respectively.