Understanding the Nutritional Status of Farming Community in Rural Areas of India: An Empirical Interpretation with Policy Implication from Socio-Economic and Gender Perspective

Abstract

Aims: In this empirical study an attempt is made to examine the relative importance of some socio-economic and demographic variables that affect the nutrition of farming community. This empirical study has been carried out for farmers and farm women separately and also for both combined to understand both ecological and gender dimensions. The major objective of the study is to conduct a series of participatory exercises to generate a micro level response data, which are primary in nature under the canopy of the title. Study Design: The locale was selected by purposive sampling technique and the respondents were selected by the simple random sampling method. Place of Study: Four gram panchayats namely Sihar, Deshra Koalpara, Lowgram and Kotulpur of the Kotulpur block of Bankura district in West Bengal were purposively selected for the study. Methodology: In this study 50 farmers and 50 farm women have been interacted and are selected by the simple random sampling method. A preliminary interview schedule has been administered to understand the knowledge, perception and attitude of the people towards nutritional concept, communication and extension system, malnutrition. The gathered data had been put into multivariate analysis. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences V20.0 (SPSS) of IBM was used for analyzing the correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis, step-down regression analysis, path analysis, canonical covariate analysis and artificial neural network analysis. Results: Several independent variables like age (x1), functional literacy (x2), family size (x4), no of farm activities (x5), working hour per day (x6), distance of work place from residence (x7), wages received (x8), duration of employment (x9), per capita income (x12), per capita expenditure (x13), deviation of blood pressure (x15), pulse rate (x16), dizziness (x17) and status of drinking water (x18) have been identified as strongest determinants to characterize output variable nutrition (y). Conclusion: The present study has uniquely landed on the value of some important empirical revelation. It can be concluded that farmers, having low income, are suffering from malnutrition most due to low calorie intake. Ensuring pure drinking water for all in rural areas is still a distant dream. A lot of farm women are suffering from dizziness and anemia due to lack of balanced diet. Malnutrition is still prevalent at significant levels especially in rural areas and the most vulnerable are children, women and elderly especially of lower income groups.