Socio-economic profile of rural farm women and their decision making pattern in agricultural activities in Mulugu district of Telangana

Abstract

Women in general play a pivotal role in agriculture in Telangana state. They carry out various activities in agriculture like cleaning of fields, preparation of field, sowing, intercultural practices, weeding, harvesting, picking, cleaning of grains, drying of grains and so forth. But, unfortunately, they remain as invisible people. However, their involvement as decision makers regarding these activities is questionable. Hence the study was carried out to analyze the contribution of rural farm women in decision - making in agriculture. For this the primary data was collected through structured questionnaire using a sample size of 120 respondents from eight villages of two mandals i.e Mangapet and Eturnagaram of Mulugu district. From each village 15 respondents were selected and from each mandal 4 villages were selected. The results of the study revealed that the majority 50.84 percent of the farm women were middle-aged between 36 to 50 years and most of the farm women were illiterates (44.17%). Majority of the farm women maintain nuclear family with 4-6 members. Most of the farm women belonged to small- medium landing categories who are involved in agricultural activities. The annual income of the majority of the respondents ranged between Rs. 50,001/- 1,00,000/-. The participation of farm women was recorded as both family labor and paid wage labor as agricultural workers in this study. It was observed that the joint decision-making power of farm women was highest in utilization of farm income and lowest in irrigation management.