Women, sustainable agriculture kits and food security in Nepal
2nd International Conference on Food Security and Sustainability
June 26-27, 2017 San Diego, USA

Rachaba Devkota, Manish Raizada, Hom Gartaula, Kirit Patel, Roshan Pudasaini3, Bhawana Ghimire and Helen Hambly-Odame

University of Guelph, Canada
Canadian Mennonite University, Canada
LI-BIRD, Nepal

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

Women and elderly are the major custodians of agriculture in Nepal as out-migration of men and youth for employment and education is significantly increased recently. This paper examines the importance of sustainable agriculture kits to reduce the workload of resource-poor women in the context of food insecure hillside terrace farming in Nepal. Sustainable agriculture kits are defined as the small tools and technologies which are less costly and easy to use by the illiterate and resource poor farmers such as women farmers in Nepal. IDRC funded project �??Sustainable Agriculture Kit and terrace farmers in Nepal�?� tested more than 30 smalls farm tools and technologies which were based on the need and demand of women and elderly farmers in the mid-hills of Nepal. Findings suggest that most of the tedious work has been performed by women farmers with traditional way of farming in rural area of Nepal. Hillside terrace specific farm tools which are small, easy to carry out in narrow terrace and less expensive are the most preferred tools by women farmers. Among these, corn sheller, mini tractor, electric millet thresher and yam in sacks technologies are most preferred and adopted by women farmers. These small farm tools and practices helped to reduce the workload of women ranging from 10 to 35%. Further, it increased the participation of men farmers in agricultural activities by 17%. It shows that small tools and technologies can reduce the gender gap in agriculture at household level. Study further reveals that women farmers from male out-migrated household are more interested towards adoption of technologies as compared to women farmers with men at home. However, regular supply of these small technologies in less price with continuous follow up from extension agents are required for the wider level of adoption of technologies in food insecure hill side terrace farming of Nepal.

Biography :

Email: rdevkota@uoguelph.ca