Tribal Farm Women's Participation in Agriculture and Factors Influencing It: Evidence from West Bengal, India

A study was conducted at Makaltala and Farmania villages of Habra block, North 24 Parganas,West Bengal, India, to know the extent of tribal women’s participation in farming activties. Rice-Jute-Mustard rotation was predominant in the study area. The results showed that participation of tribal farm women were 28.3 man-days on an average during the crop seasons. Participation in farming activities during mustard crop season in terms of average man-days was more (11.81) when compared to paddy (9.48) and jute (7.01). The involvement of women was more in transplantation, weeding, and harvesting activities. Most of the farm women were middle aged, illiterate, had high economic motivation and social participation. The independent variables like education and economic motivation had significant positive relationship, whereas age and social participation had significant negative relationship with participation of tribal women in farming activities. Lack of education, knowledge, and skill, lack of child care facilities, low income derived from agriculture, etc. were the major constraints expressed by the tribal women. Skill development among the tribal farm women regarding the new simple agriculture technologies suitable to their location will have a far reaching impact on improving the tribal farm women’s participation in agriculture, improving their confidence in farming.