ot* t*t$

ISSN - lsls-r272

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

OF SUSTAINABLE

AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY

\".t,.^,. 11i U^*i:lL l-

tr4^,, 1.\1 (rrAd.J FJ \)

Science PublicationIISATIssue 5

'.;.::

I JSAT :

Int. .1. Sustain. Agril Tech. I2(5): 0l-05. May 2016An online Joumal ol"f-science Implementatron

ISSN 1BI5-I212, VoLume 12 issue 5 2AL6Title code: IJSAT/160501

& Publrcation", website: www.gscience.net

PARTICIPATION OF SANTAL WOMEN IN AGRICULTURAL INCOME GENERATINGACTIVITIES IN DINAJPUR DISTRICT OF BANGLADESH

M. A. HOSSAINT., M. S. ULLAz andM.Z. HAQUEI

rFirst Assistant Vice President of Social Islami Bank Limited (SIBL), Dhaka and'&'Professor, Departmenrof Agricultural Extension and Inlormation System, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University (SAU), Dhaka,Bangladesh. +Corresponding author's Email: aoladh@gmail.com

ABSTRACTThe study was conducted at the Department ofAgricultural Extension & Information System, Sher-e-BanglaAgricultural University, Dhaka. Bangladesh during September to October 2006 to determine the extent ofparticipations of Santal women in agricultural income generating activities (lGAs) in Dinajpur district and toexplore the relationships between the selected characteristics of the respondents and their extent ofparticipations in agricultural ICAs. The study was conducted in five upazilas of Dina.jpur district namely.Birganj, Biral, Sadar, Birampur and Nawabganj, Data were collecled randomly from 100 Santal women bythrough interview schedule. Extent ofparticipations olSantal women in agricultural lGAs was measured onthe basis of participations of the Santal women in lour agricultural IGA domains viz. (i) homestead vegetablecultivatron, (ii) post-harvest actrvities, (iii) poultry rearing and (iv) goat rearing, each consisting of l0 incomegenerating activities (lGAs). The study revealed that highest proportion (58%) ofthe Santal women had lowparticipation in agricultural ICAs compared to 28'r/o wtd l4o/o having medium participation and highparticipation respectively. Findings also reveaied that level of education. farm size, annual family income,cosmopoliteness, extension contact. innovalii'eness. knowledge on agricultural ICAs and attitude towardsagricultural ICAs of rhe respondents had significant positive relationships with their extent of participations inagricultural lGAs. Other variables of the study viz. age and family size of the respondents had no significantrelationships with their participations in agricultural lCAs.

Keywords: Agriculture, Extension, Development, lncome generating activities, Women, Minority and Ethnicgroup.

INTRODUCTION

Santals, an ethnic group in Bangladesh, are mainly living in the Himalayan sub-mountain region indifferent disrricts of Rajshahi division. Their principal home is in Radha (in West Bengal), the forests ofadjacent Bihar (Jhadkhand). Orissa and Chhota Nagpur. The British government assigned a specialterritory for their livine and named it Santal Pargana. It is difficult to definitely say when and why theyseftled in the East Bengal region. But the census of l88l shows that there were Santal settlements in thedisfricts of Dinajpur, Pabna. Jessore. Khulna and even in Chittagong. A survey of the Santal population ofpresent Bangladesh area conducted in l94l recorded their number as829,025. The censuses organizedafter the Partition of Bengal (1947) did not count Santals as a separate $oup of people and consequently,their exact number in Bangladesh could not be determined. According to an estimate made by Christianmissionaries in the 1980s, the Santal population in n\ofthern Bangladesh was over one hundred thousand.According to the 199 I census, the Santal population was over two hundred thousand (Banglapedia,2006).Santals and related aborigines are alnong the earliest settlers of the subcontinent and are acknowledged as

the progenitors and maintainers of agricultural production system and agro-based culture. Santals live apoor life. They are compelled to sell their labor at a very Iow' price in rice fields, tea gardens or elsewhere.Besides, they dig soil, carry loads, or engage themselves in similar works of day laborers. Domination ofthe male is more prominent in the Santal sociefy although the role of women in the family is by no meansinsignificant. Santal women rather take a leading role in earning livelihood or in farming work. Receivingmodem education is growing among Santals, but poverfy is a great obstacle for them. The Santalcommunily has not been able to free themselves liom the rule and exploitation by landowners andmoneylenders. Women are the key operators of household activities. They were pioneers in plantdomestication and planned agriculture (Childe, 197 l). Women played significant role in agriculturaldevelopment in the allied fields including crop production, livestock production, horticulture, post-harvestoperations, agro-social forestry and fisheries. The women do productive activities including agricultural

IJSAr: ISSN 1B15-1212, u;:"::.:? i:;X;r?133;i

and non-agricultural works within the homestead (Halim and McCarthy, l9S5). Thus women perform

more activities compared to men. Women are nrostly underutilized, largely unrecognized though they

contribute significantly to agricultural and non-agricultural activities (Akanda, 1994). This is the pathetic

scenario of Sangladeshi women whereas women constitute about half of the population. If one wants to

develop the Bangladesh economy by reducing poverty, one has to give proper attention to involve the

women in different income generating activities (IGAs), specially in agricultural IGAs. So, proper

documentation of women participation-in agricultural IGAs is necessary to give them due respect and

recognition. On the other hand, there is a need to find out working areas for intensifoing their participation

in alricultural production. ln a country like Bangladesh, more involvement of women in different

agriclultural IGAs becomes mandatory to combat the overall food shortage, malnutrition and also to boost

ui economic development of the country. A number of Santal families are living in different upazilas of

Oina.lpur district. We know that Santal women take a leading role in eaming livelihood or in farming work

(Banglapedia, 2006). Santal women like other rural women can play effective role in agricultural

prodiction of this area if their participations in agriculfural IGAs are increased. So, it is imponant to know

ihe actual situation of Santal women participation in some common agricultural lGAs of the study area.

The study objectives are (i). to determine and describe the selected characteristics of the Santal women,

(ii). to aisess the exrent of participations of Santal women in agricultural ICAs and (iii). to explore the

ieiationships between the selected characteristics of the Santal women and their extent of participations in

agricultural IGAs.

METHODOLOGY

The study was conducted at the Department of Agiicultural Extension & lnformation System, Sher-e-

Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, Bangladesh during September to October 2006. Five Santal

o..upi.d uillug.5 *.." pu.poiively selected as the locale of the study taking one village from five

,putilunamely-Birganj, biral, Sadir. Birampur and Nawabganj. The total number of Santal households

(itt) in the study Elrea was considered as the population of the stud,v-. One hundred Santal women were

ianOomly selected at the rate of 20Yo as sample fi'om the total population. Data were collected through

an interview schedule.

Measurement of independent variables: The characteristics of the farmers such as age, level of

education, family siie, farm size, annual family income, cosmopoliteness, extension contact'

innovativeness and attitude towards agricultural IGAs were the independent variables of the study. Age

of the respondents was measured in ierms of actual years ffom.his birth to the time of interview' The

level of education was measured in terms of formal years olschooling. Family size was calculated by

computing the total number of members of the respondents' family who jointly lived and ate together'

The area lossessed by the Santal women under farm and homesteads were the basis for calculation of

farm size. Annual family income was measured considering the total yearly earnings from agricultural

and non-agricultural sources of the members of a respondent's family. Cosmopoliteness score of the

respondenis was calculated by summing up the obtained scores against each of the five selected places

of visit with the help of a four point rating scale ranging liom'regularly'to'never'. Exten-sion contact

score of the respondenb was computed by summin$ up the obtained scores against each of the thirteen

selected sources of contact with the help of a fourpoint rating scale ranging fiom'regularly'to'never''

Innovativeness score of the respondents was measured by adding each of the obtained scores of a

respondent on the basis of her number and duration of adoption of l0 selected improved technologies'

Respondents' knowledge on agricultural IGAs was measured by asking l5 questions related to different

urp..t, of agriculturat iCes. L.or. of I (one) was assigned for each correct answer and a score of 0

(zero) was -assigned for each wrong answer' Respondents' attitude towards agricultural IGAs was

r"asured by using Likert-type scale which contained l6 statements out of which 8 statements were

positive and 8 statements were negative.

Measurement of dependent variable: Extent of participations of Santai women in agricultural IGAs was

the dependent variable of the study. It was measured on the basis of extent of participations of Santal

women in four agricultural IGA domains viz. (i) homestead vegetable cultivation' (ii) post-harvest

IJSAT: ISSN 1815-1272, Vclume i2 tssue a 2CI6Title code: I-jSAT/i6O50l

activities' (iii) poultry rearing and (iv) goat rearing. each consisring of l0 activities. Exrent olparlicipations of Santal women in agricultural lCAs was measured on a three point rating scale.According to the instrument used for measuring extent of participations in agricultuial IGAs, the rangeof scores of the individual Santal women for a particular IGA domain could range ffom 0 to 20 and thatfor four IGA domains could range from 0 to 80. Thus, the range of total icore of the extent ofparticipations in agricultural ICAs of a Santal woman could range from 0 to 80. To identifu theimportant agricultural IGA domains, a participation index (PI) was calculated. A total of 100respondents gave their opinions on a two point rating scale for l0 income generating activities of aparticular IGA domain. So, the participation index (PI) of a particular IGA domain *or'ld range from 0to 2000 [100 respondents x l0 income generating activities x (0-2) rating scale].

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Selected characteristics of the Santal WomenThe findings of the Santal women'selected characteristics have been discussed and a summary profileof these characteristics is presented in table l, which indicates an overwhelming majority (96%) of theSantal women belonged to middle and young aged categories except afew 14;/o1. ernong which g9%had education ranged from primary to secondary while I l%o were illiterate. Almost two thirds of therespondents belonged to medium and large family that means population control measures were notsatisfactory.

Table L Sanatal women's characteristics profile.

Characteristics (withmeasuring units)

Possib Ierange

Observedrange Categories Number

(N = r00)Mean Standard

deviation4551 3r.68 7.38oilrf.:ffidifib"".45) fi

lvea,orscnooirng; Unknown 0-r4 |:'#l?dti!litJ-'', tl 3 62 2.s7

Age (Actual years) UnknownYoung aged (up to 30)

I 8-58 Middle aged (l l-45)

Above secondarv leveSmall(2-4)Mediurn (5-6)

Familv size (Actualnumbers) unknown l.'745.29

Farm size (Hectare) Unknown

Laree (7 and aboveMarginal (up to 0.50)

0.01-2.12 Small (0.51-1 00)Medium (above 1.00)

814 0.289

0.4 r

23.25

CosmooolitenesslScorej u- I ) 4-ll Medium (6-10)

Poor (up to 9)7-14 Medium (10-12)

465 9.l8 2.233l

,rScore) u-3e 8-18 :i^:l,:t j:.'^1)- ,,,Score) Medium (above l3Low(upto ll)Medium (above I I

nowledge onagricultural lGAs 0- 15 16 8.17 1.69(Sc,ore) . High ( 13 and above) 2Attitude towardsagricultural IGAs 0-64 24-56 Moderate favorable (34-44) 56 40.09 j.35

Favorable (above 44

The highest proportion of the Santal women had(87%) marginal farm size whereas only l3o/o had smallto medium farm size. Almost three-fourth of the respondents (72 percent) had low to medium annualfamily income while only 28%o of them had high annual family income. Most (96%) of the respondentsbelonged to medium to high cosmopoliteness categories except a few (4oh) that means Santal women

20

rJSAr: rssN r'r5_r2i2,rl;:"::.:? i;;;;rir;3;i

frequently come out their own social system in.search of works. Majoriry (g0%) of the respondents hadlow extension contactbut rest of them (20%)had medium."t.nrion contact. Among the respondents49oh had low innovativeness habit whereas 5l%o had medium innovativeness habit. Almost all therespondents (98%) had poor to medium knowledge on agriculturai icn, while only 2yo ofthem hadhigh knowledge. The tabulated data indicates thit most-(slb) otfthe respondents in rhe study areaformed moderate favorable to favorable attitude towards ugri.ur;.ui IGAs while only l31o had 1owfavorable attitude.

Extent of participation of Santal Women in Agricultural IGAssantal women generally perform a number of agiiculturat income generating activities within or outsidethe boundary of the homestead. However, iheir participations" in- agricultural income generatingactivities (lGAs) have been confined to (i) homestead vegeiable cultivation, (ii) post-harvest activities,(iii).poultry rearing and (iv) goat rearing. The present study was canied out ro assess the extent ofparticipations of Santal women in agricultural tcas. Extent tf participations in agricultural IGAs wasmeasured by determining extent of participations of santal women in four agricultural IGA domains,each consisting of l0 income generating aciivitier. The computed extent of paiicipations in agriculturallGAs scores of Santal women ranged from 24-to 75 againit the possible range of 0 to g0, having anaverage of 38.92 with a standard deviation of 13.44 (Table 2).

Table 2' Distribution of the Santal women according to their extent of participations in agricultural IcAs.Categories of Santal Women

dard deviationLow participation (up to :S score)

Medium participation (40-55 score)

58

28

58

28 38.92 t3.44t-{igl participation (56 and above score) 14 14Total l0

3"llr::::::l l::"b'" ? i""::l: rhut,T9t: thun huin agricultural IGAs, while 28o/o and l4Yo had medium and high purtiriputions in agricultural IGAsrespectively. To identifu the important agricultural IGA dom-ains, a participation rndex (pl) wascalculated and based on those pl, agriculturat lcn domains were ranked (Table 3).

I r37| 3041346t22t

homestead vegetable cultivation (1137). The findings of table 3 prompted to conclude that most of theSantal-women belonged to marginal farm size; as aiesult they have limited scope to engage homesteadvegetable cultivation activities whereas poultry rearing requires limited space wiih Iow primaryinvestment. Santal women'participation in post-harvestaitivities ranked 2il, tt'. i*ro"'jmor, of themsell labors in others farms.

Table 3. Rank order of the Itural IGA domains based on plSl. No.

Rank orderHomestead vegetable cultivation

4

2

I

3

Post-harvest activitiesPoultry rearingGoat rearin

Table 3 indicates that the.h.ighest extent of participations of Santal women in agricultural IGAs waspoultry rearing (1346) and it was followed by posi-harvest activities (1304), goa-t rearing (1221) and

I

2

J4

Relationships between the selected characteristics of the Santal Women and their extent ofparticipations in Agricultural IGAsAn effort was made to find out the relationships between the selected characteristics of the respondents

and their extent of participations in agricultural IGAs. Co-efficient of correlation results revealed thatout of l0 selected characteristics ofthe respondents 8 namely level ofeducation, farm size, annualfamily.income, cosmopoliteness, extension contact, innovativeness, knowledge on agricultural IGAsand. attitude towards agricultural lGAs had positive significant relationships. piossible-reason might behigher level of these characteristics facilitate and.make capable and confident the Santal women topafticipate in agricultural IGAs. Akanda (1994), Saugwan et at. (1990), Karim (1993), yerma et al.

4

in agricultural IGAs

Itural IGAs domain

IJSAT: ISSN i8l5_12?2, Volume -2 ..s-s:::20_{Title code: I-rSATrl60501

(1988) and Ali (1995) also found similar relationships. On the other hand, respondenrs'age and lamilysize had no significant relationships with their extent of pafticipations in agricultural IGAs.

Table 4. Co-efficient of correlation between the selected characteristics of the Santal women and theirextent of particinations in icultural IGAs.

Santal women' characteristics Correlation co-efficient (r) of Santal women extent ofrticipations in Itural lGAs

AgeLevel of educationFamily sizeFarm sizeAnnual family incomeCosmopoiitenessExtension contactInnovativenessKnowledge on agricultural lCAs

0.0230.250*0. l4l0.260* *

0.277**0.299**0.765**0.670* *

0.560* *

0.3 59* *Attitude towards agricultural ICAstSignificantat0.05 level olprobability,**Sighificantat0.0l level ofprobability

CONCLUSION

On the basis of data analysis and their logical interpretation, the study revealed that 5g% of the Santalwomen had low participation in agricultural IGAs while 28%o and l4Yo had medium participation and highparticipation respectively. Under the existing circumstances, it may be concluded that policy makers andconcerned authorities should alrange training for Santal women on various agricultural innovations andestablished techniques or practices to increase their knowledge on agricultural iicome generating activities(lGAs) that would ultimately increase their participations in agriculrural IGAs. on ihe otheihand, thehighest extent of participation of Santal women in agricultural IGAs was poultry rearing (1346) and it wasfollowed by post-harvest activities (1304), goat rearing (1221) and homesiead veletable'cultivation( | 137). As most of the Santal women belonged to marginal farm size along with low t-o medium incomecategories, special strategies should be taken for them to implement homestead development programs inan integrated approach involving private and public sector organizations considering homeitead as themain production unit and women are the key operators. Need-based training, sufficient credit as well asliequent contact by the extension agents with them should be ensured foi increasing participations ofSantal women in agricultural income generating activities (lGAs).

REFERENCES

Akanda, W. 1994. Parricipation of rural women in different f'arm and non-farm activities inMymensingh district. MS Thesis, Departmenr ol Agricultural ExtensionAgricultural University, Mymensingh.

Ali. o. 1995. Attitude of Rural women of Bangladesh Agricultural UniversityWorking in Group. M.S. Thesis, Agricultural Extension Education.

two selected villages ofEducation, Bangladesh

Mymensingh.

Banglapedia, 2006. National Encyclopedia olBangladesh.Childe, C.V. 1971. Origin of Agriculture. In: prehisroric

Press. P. I 9.

Halim, A. and F. E. McCarthy. 1985. Women Labour in Rural Bangladesh: A Socio-Economic Analysis. CraduateTraining Institute, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh.

Karim' M. M. 1993. Assessment of Santal women'agricultural knowledge in sugarcane cultivation. Department ofExtension Education.. IPSA. Salna, Cazipur.

Saugwan,_V_..S- S. Manjal and R. K. Punia. 1990. Participation olwomen in farm activities. Inclian J. Extn. Edu.XXVI (l&2\: ll2-t14.

Verma' T.' V. Jain and S. Devi. I988. A study on gain-in knowledge and change in attitude rhrough training onimproved home making tasks. Indian.lournal olExrension Education. X-XV llaZ;: ZS

Extension Centre (BAUEC) towardsBangladesh Agricultural Unrversity.

Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, Dhaka.

Agriculture. Carden City, New York. National Histr-rry