Technological need of women workers involved in turmeric cultivation: An exploratory study

Abstract

Turmeric is one of the most important spice mostly used in the every households. It is the major ingredient in Indian cuisine and used for coloring and flavouring. It also has high medicinal values and also significantly used in religious activities. Turmeric is considered as one of the women dominated crop in which women’s participation is more than the men counterparts. Both of them perform harvesting, boiling, transporting and marketing whereas the other activities such as sowing, mulching, weeding, harvesting, transporting, boiling, drying, polishing, cleaning, grinding, sieving, packaging, sealing and marketing are extensively done by women. They used traditional tools and equipment which are not suitable for them. These activities with existing technologies demand heavy activities in the form of awkward posture, repetitive movements of body parts, application of static and dynamic force and contact force while working at indoor and extreme outdoor environments. Keeping these in view an attempt has been made with objectives to study the existing practices and extent of involvement of women workers in harvest and post harvest activities of turmeric crop in Punjab and Odisha and to identify the technological needs of women workers in harvest and post harvest activities. It was found that there are some of traditional tools and equipment used by the women workers manually during harvesting, boiling, polishing, cleaning etc which were used repetitively and forceful use of upper and lower limbs. They have lack of knowledge and skill about improved tools and technology. Most of the women from rural back ground cannot avail improved technology because of their poor socio economic status. All of these factors cumulatively affect the work life, occupational health and livelihood status. These lead to drudgery and health hazards among women workers involved in turmeric cultivation. Hence, this study suggested for further suitable ergonomic interventions of women friendly technologies to reduce drudgery of women workers in turmeric cultivation.