Farm women: Reducing drudgery through gadgetry

Women have been a silent and invisible partners contributing to development in different sectors of economy.

Agriculture is a vital one contributing to about 20 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and providing livelihood support to about 50 per cent of the population, directly or indirectly.

   

Across globe rural women are at the forefront in agriculture, food and nutritional security, natural resource management and biodiversity conservation.

Their contribution to the agriculture sector is immense. As per global estimates, one in three employed women works in agriculture, food security, nutrition, land and natural resource management, livestock husbandry, domestic care and work.

In countries like Pakistan, Tanzania, Gambia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, and Turkey the percentage of women employed in the primary sector even exceeds 80%.

Despite the fact that women do most of the work in agriculture and animal husbandry, their contribution has largely been ignored and inadequately acknowledged.

They always remain invisible workers; often remain excluded from information access, decision-making processes and governance structures. Their role is rarely associated with equal access to agricultural resources, technologies, finance, training, digital literacy, or salary when compared with men’s activities.

The farm women are more exposed to less-mechanized, drudgery loaded, labor-intensive activities and related health hazards.

This has a severe impact on agriculture. Studies reveal that, in case of agriculture, women farmers typically achieve yields 20-30% less than men due to unequal access to productive resources and services. If we take the case of livestock, studies reveal that less than 3% of them have access to technology for livestock management.

Closing this gender gap could reduce the number of malnourished people by 12-17%. Holistic interventions are thus crucial to link billions of such small scale farm women and producers with labour saving gadgetry, finance and markets.

Empowering women in agriculture and eliminating the current gender gap is fundamental, not only to increase female farm returns (by 20-30 percent according to UN Women), but also to boost agricultural production in developing countries, tackling the serious issue of undernourishment.

The gadgetry which results in drudgery reduction, saves time and labour of farm women, is fundamental to build climate-resilient food systems, increase yields, enhance food quality and safety and take the agriculture sector to newer heights. Implements have been developed which reduce drudgery to help farm women.

For example, a simple manually operated hand ridger with a T type handle available at just rupees seven hundred is used for making ridges in field to sow vegetables on ridges has a capacity of performing operation with more efficiency. Productivity of worker doubles with the equipment than traditional practice.

The seed treatment drum is another low cost implement used for uniformly mixing chemicals in seeds for its treatment before sowing. The cylindrical drum is mounted on a tripod angle iron frame with three pieces of mild steel flat welded inside the drum for helping in uniform mixing.

After adding the ingredients the drum is rotated for 20 to 25 revolutions. A batch of 20 kg seeds takes about 5-6 minutes for complete operation i.e. filling, treating and emptying. It has a capacity of 200 kg/h. Conventional seed sowing method involves broadcasting which results in high seed rate per unit area.

Broadcasting also does not maintain a proper plant to plant distance and seed placement at appropriate depth. A seed drill ensures that the seed is placed at appropriate distance and at appropriate depth.

Empowering women in agriculture and eliminating the current gender gap is fundamental, not only to increase female farm returns (by 20-30 percent according to UN Women), but also to boost agricultural production in developing countries, tackling the serious issue of undernourishment.

Besides saving a lot of seed per unit area, the output of this gadget is about 18 times more than the traditional practice and there is 87% saving in cardiac cost of workers per unit of output.

The seed dibbler, another implement, has a jaw type seed placement device and a lever which is gently pushed to place the seed at the desired place. It is useful for dibbling bold seeds like maize, soybean or costly/scarce seeds in less area and for gap filling purpose.

Seed Dibbler also ensures line sowing which also make it easy to use mechanical weeders thereby reducing drudgery and cost during weeding operation. Paddy transplanting is also a very labour intensive process. A Four Row Paddy Drum Seeder results in line sowing of sprouted paddy seeds. The equipment is operated with a walking speed of 1-1.5 km/hr.

It has a capacity of 920 m2 per hour, is light in weight, and easy to transport and handle, and ensures uniformity in seed sowing. Drum weeder results in seed saving. Line sowing is done with the equipment that promotes use of mechanical weeders thereby reducing drudgery and cost during weeding operation.

The two row rice transplanter developed by CRRI, Orissa is also a novel drudgery reduction implement that is reported to increase the productivity of worker by 79% as compared to traditional method.

Weeding and Inter-culture operations are also very labour intensive operations. A small implement Wheel Hoe cuts and uproots weeds in field through push and pull type action of the equipment. It has a capacity of 150 m2 per hour. The productivity of worker is increased more than three times and costs rupees 800 only.

A sickle is also the widely used implement used for harvesting various crops. The Cono Weeder is used for uprooting and burying of weeds in between standing rows of rice crop in wetlands. The Cono weeder can also be used for trampling green manure crop in addition to weeding operation. It disturbs the top soil and increases aeration also.

The equipment is operated in standing posture thus avoiding bending involved during uprooting of weeds by hands in traditional practice. It has a capacity of 120 m2 per hour.

The improved (serrated) sickle cuts the crop stalk by sawing action as against by impact or pulling action in case of local sickle. Due to its less weight, about 180 gms, the fatigue coming on wrist is less and the drudgery involved in harvesting is reduced as compared to local sickles which are heavier, weighing about 350 gms.

It is available just at rupees 60 and has a capacity of 150 m2/h. For shelling maize from de-husked cob, Maize Sheller is an important implement. The tubular implement is made of mild steel sheet and is octagonal in shape. Four tapered fins are provided in the maize sheller, which helps in shelling the maize grain from de-husked cobs.

A cob is inserted into it and by twisting action shelling is achieved. It has a capacity of 27 kg/h. The productivity of workers increased 1.6 times than traditional practice i.e., shelling with the help of sheller. As compared to tubular one, the rotary maize sheller has a capacity of 73kg/hour.

The Paddle Operated Paddy Thresher helps to reduce the drudgery involved in paddy threshing operation as bending posture is avoided and arms are not to be raised for above shoulder height as in case of traditional method i.e. beating on a platform/stone.

Empowering women in agriculture and eliminating the current gender gap is fundamental, not only to increase female farm returns (by 20-30 percent according to UN Women), but also to boost agricultural production in developing countries, tackling the serious issue of undernourishment.

The manually operated implement Fruit Harvester is used for plucking of fruits from orchard trees. It can harvest 420 fruits per hour, and also avoids damage to the fruits as fruits do not fall down to the ground.

The Hanging Type Grain Cleaner with Sac Holder is also a farm women friendly implement used for separating impurities like stubbles, chaff, dirt and broken items received with grain after threshing.

The productivity of the worker increases more than four times as compared to traditional thereby reducing drudgery. The Paddy Winnower used for cleaning grain after harvesting is easily operated and very useful for women farm workers while seating on chair or stool.

It consists of main frame, handle, gear mechanism, volute case, fan, hopper, outlets for clean grain and chaff. There is no need of waiting for air flow as required in traditional cleaning.

The picking of ladyfingers is a tough and tedious job because of thorny skin of ladyfinger and also because it has to be plucked one by one. To overcome this, a simple Ladyfinger Plucker has been developed which fits into the hand properly, with the help of two rings, one in thumb and another in little finger.

The force to cut the pedicel is exerted by pressing these two fingers together. With this plucker one can harvest 5 to10 kg of ladyfinger in an hour without causing any itching or discomfort to skin. It is available at a meagre amount of Rs. 35/-.

The Hand Operated Chaff Cutter for cutting the chaff into the small pieces is provided with safety devices as per the Indian standard IS 7898. The machine is operated by rotating a flywheel on which the blades are mounted. Another person feeds the forage or grass through the feeding through.

Dry or green fodder can easily be chopped with the machine. Besides safe in operating it also reduces the wastage of fodder. The Dal Mill, a low cost mill used to prepare dal from whole pulse grain, is a very handy tool.

This electricity run machine is used for de-husking and splitting of pigeon pea, black gram, green gram and lentil.

The beans to be milled are first soaked in water, sun-dried and later on fed into the unit to get the Dal in two passes. It has a capacity of 100 kg/h and costs rupees 30,000.

There are also many labor-saving technologies (LSTs) which relieve women from the time constraints and drudgery involved in working in agriculture and managing household chores.

Given the growing involvement of women in agriculture and for making them more relevant, gendered-design considerations of the implements is important to increase their adoption rates.

The tools should consider women ergonomics and gendered perceptions such as weight ease of use by women, complexity and their relative advantage. This can contribute to increased adoption and also ensure sustainable use.

Empowering women in agriculture and eliminating the current gender gap is fundamental, not only to increase female farm returns, by 20-30 percent, but also to boost agricultural production in developing countries, tackling the serious issue of undernourishment.

Prof. Dil Mohammad Makdoomi, Director Extension SKUAST KASHMIR

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.

The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.

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