Exploring Women Participation in Small-scale Dairy Farming: A Case of Paikgachha Upazila, Khulna, Bangladesh

Abstract

The study was conducted to assess the extent of participation of rural women in small-scale dairy farming for poverty reduction in two villages at Paikgachha upazila in the Khulna district, Bangladesh. Data were collected from 50 respondents through direct interviews involved in small-scale dairy farming during June 2017. The study revealed that majority of the women were middle aged (66%) in joint families (68%) with being literates (82%). Majority of the respondent families were marginal farmers (44%, 0.02-0.20 ha) followed by small farmers (42%, 0.21-1.00 ha) with high annual family income (62%,>1,50,000 Tk.) having dairy farming (100%) as the major occupation. About 25 operations of dairy farming were selected in consultation with experts and were broadly categorized into six aspects as economic, feeding, breeding, livestock management, health care, purchasing, processing and marketing activities. The study revealed that women participation was maximum in watering to livestock, cleaning of animal sheds, chopping of straw, care of new born calves, management of calves. The farm women participation was least in farm record maintenance, feeding of urea treated straw, artificial insemination (AI) practice, purchasing of feeds and fodder. Majority (82%) of the respondents had no organizational participation. All the respondents had low extension contact and majority (58%) of them was low cosmopolitanism, all of them having no training but they having high knowledge about dairying activities. Among fourteen selected characteristics of the respondents only age and knowledge had shown positive significant relationship with participation of women in dairy farming activities with 30.5% contribution to the total income returned from these activities with increased happiness, improved education and improved housing condition, which are the poverty reduction indicators.