Role of farm women in livestock related decision making

The association between women and livestock production needs productive exploitation, especially while aiming at rural development through livestock development, lack of empirical evidence on the magnitude of the female participation in decision making and the extent and nature of their association in livestock farming operations, however, limit our efforts in exploiting this linkage. This study has been planned to fill this gap, arising out of the dearth of documented evidence on female participation in decision making related to livestock farming. This study found that the areas of decision relating to livestock production in which farm women played a role were purchase of animals, purchase of feed, construction of animal house, equipment purchase, veterinary care, sale of milk, sale of other outputs, capital borrowing for livestock and fodder cultivation. Their participation in decision making relating to livestock keeping either solely or jointly varied between 5 per cent to 87.8 per cent in different areas. The female participation was maximum in the areas of sale of milk (87.8 per cent) and veterinary care (80.8 per cent) and minimum in capital borrowing decisions for livestock (5.9 per cent) and fodder cultivation (5.0 per cent).