Role of women Inhill Farming: A Study Of Himachal Pradesh, 1988, by B.K. Sikka & R. Swarup.

Abstract: Women have always played a pivotal role in our society in general and agriculture in particular. In Himachal Pradesh they have not only been attending to the various field operations like transplanting and weeding but their contribution is in no way lesser in many harvest and post-harvest operations, like harvesting, threshing, winnowing, storage etc. The tending of farm animals and saving farmyard refuse for use either as fuel or manure have all been predominantly women’s duties. Women also devote considerable time in household chores and family affairs. Thus women carry the double burden of house keeping as well as that of income generating activities.

Thus, the participation of women in farm and other related activities and their contribution to farm income has been important and the same has been studied. It was observed that on an average female labour puts more time (2625 hours) than that of male labour (2503 hours) per annum on various farm and non-farm activities. Activity-wise analysis revealed that on crop production males put more time (14.6%) as compared to females (7.9%) while the females put more time in tending of cattle (22.6%) as compared to males (17.5%). On an average females contributed more time to farm activities (45%) as compared to males (38%). The female labour exchanged out, hired out and in service and business was found to be negligible, while they contributed more in social and family affairs. The analysis of the contribution of female labour in various field operations revealed that the operations mostly done by women are interculture, threshing and harvesting which together accounted for about 68 per cent of the total female labour. On an average, females put 46.5 per cent while males 53.5 per cent of their labour in total farming operations. The contribution of women to farm income was found to be more than 50 per cent on all sizes of farms.