Participation of Rural Women in Organic Farming

Abstract

The study assessed the participation of rural women in organic farming and explored the relationship between selected characteristics of the rural women and their extent of participation in organic farming. This investigation was a survey type of research involving descriptive and diagnostic type of research design. The study was conducted at seven unions of Batiaghata Upazila under Khulna district of Bangladesh namely Amirpur, Gangarampur, Jalma, Batiaghata, Baliadanga, Bhanderkote and Surkhali. Data were collected from randomly selected 140 respondents during the period of 20th January to 15th February, 2019. Correlation(s) test was used to ascertain the relationships between the concerned independent variables and the dependent variable and simple linear regression was done to determine the effect of the selected five independent variables (agricultural training, knowledge, attitude, practice and problem) on participation. Majority (52.1%) of the women had medium participation followed by high (44.3%) and low (3.6%) participation. Considering broadly selected 7-aspects of organic farming, the rural women’s participation was highest in land management while it was lowest in marketing the product. Among 24 issues women were found to be greatly involved in collection of organic product from their own residence while it was least in case of collection of organic product from farm. Agricultural training, knowledge, attitude and practice showed positive significant relationship out of fifteen selected characteristics of rural women and only problem showed negative significant relationship with their participation in organic farming. In case of simple linear regression 7%, 14.44%, 18.85%, 18.96% and 8.69% of the participation can be explained by the variables as agricultural training, knowledge, attitude, practice and problem respectively. It can be concluded that women participation was confined only in small scale crop production and there is a need for further enhancement of the extent of participation of rural women in organic farming.