Farmers' perception of women's participation in agricultural operations

Abstract

Almost one-half of total population in Bangladesh arc women and ninety percent of them livc in rural villages. Traditionally, they used to participate in homcstcad agricultural operations. This study tries to find out through opinion survey as to what cxtcnt do they participate in various aspects of agricultural production system specially in post-harvest operations within the homcstcads. Findings show that most of thc rural women (95%) had active participation in multiple farm practices including secd management, post-harvest operations and livestock management. But in casc of dccision-making patterns, women were predominantly dictated by men in adopting new farm technology. Moreover, they had ncithcr any access to cxtcnsion scrviccs nor any institutional credit resources, apart from a host of problcms pcrccivcd by them.