Gender Roles of Garo Women in Paddy Cultivation-A Critical Study
2019
Meghalaya being the only matriarchal state of the country, women enjoys more power and decision making capacity as compared to women of rest of the country. About 72 per cent of the total female workers in the state are engaged in agriculture as cultivators and labourers as against 61 per cent of male workers. In addition, about 46 per cent of the cultivators in the state are women; while the corresponding national figure is only 32 per cent. Most of the agricultural operations are performed by women folk in addition to the household chores. The major crops grown in Garo Hills are paddy, maize, cashew nut, betel nut, oranges, pineapple, black pepper and other fruits & vegetables. The study was conducted under University funded research project (IRP) during 2011. The main objective of the study was to study gender roles of the respondents engaged in paddy cultivation. A total of 120 respondents (couple) were selected from four villages (random) from the two randomly selected blocks of West Garo Hills district, Meghalaya. The main findings of the study were that application of FYM (75%), land preparation (65%), seed selection and treatment (39.17%), preparation of nursery (92%), sowing (87%), transplanting of nursery (91.67%), fertilizer application (15%), weeding (83.33%), plant protection measures (5%), harvesting (95.83%), threshing (75.83%), storage of grains (71.67%), sale of produce (38.33%) and adoption of modern technology (18.33%) were performed by farm women in contrast to their spouse. Access and control profile of the respondents showed that except for land preparation, burning of jungle and grain storage, most of the other operations-seed selection (55.3%), sowing/nursery raising (55.26), harvesting/plucking (72.9%) and threshing (72.63%) are done exclusively or predominantly by women. The study signifies significant but unrecognised contribution of women in major crop cultivation in the selected district of Meghalaya.
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