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• Empowerment of rural women farmers and food production in Rathnapura district in Sri Lanka: a household level analysis

  105-112

  S D D Rathnachandra

  Views:

  229

  Women empowerment and gender equity are two significant aspects of the sustainable development of a country. As Sri Lanka is on the way towards sustainable development, this study was conducted to assess the situation of women farmers’ empowerment and food production in Rathnapura district of the country.  A sample of 300 women farmers was randomly selected for the study, from two selected Divisional Secretariat (DS) of Rathnapura district. Data was collected from a field survey using a pre-tested, self-administered questionnaire survey from April to July 2019. Empowerment was analyzed using the empowerment framework used by RAHMAN AND NAOZORE in 2007 in the study of “Women Empowerment through Participation in Aquaculture” with necessary modifications.  Data analysis was conducted using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis. Results revealed that majority of the women farmers were middle aged, married and had children. Furthermore, most of them had education up to secondary level. While average family size was four, average farm size was 1.25 acres. They had around 16 years of farming experience.  The average monthly income of them was 25,000.00 LKR whereas 20% of it was from agriculture. The main sources of empowerment of women farmers were the Agrarian Service Center (55%) followed by village organizations/societies (30%) and microfinance institutions (26%). Furthermore, women empowerment index was 0.65. It is a moderate level of empowerment. However, there were women farmers under three categories of empowerment levels: low empowerment (4.1%), medium empowerment (58.5%) and high empowerment (36.1%).   Out of the socio-economic factors; age, education, family size, land size, number of training programs participated, monthly income, experience in agriculture and number of organizations participated, education and number of training programs attended had significant and positive effect for the empowerment. Accessibility of credit facilities and agricultural extension program participation showed that there was a considerable impact on food production rather than the cultivable land size and utilization of modern farming technologies for food production. Therefore, proving of timely important agricultural education and training programs, enhance awareness level of modern farming technology utilization, better micro finance programs and agricultural credit facilities will be able to enhance the empowerment level of the women farmers of this area furthermore.  

  JEL CODE: Q01, Q12

• Assessment of women farmers’ credit needs in imbulpe ds division in Sri Lanka

  Dilini Rathnachandra

  Views:

  195

  The study was conducted to identify the role of women farmers’ credit needs, using Imbulpe (Divisional Secretariat) DS Division in Sri Lanka. As the sample size of study 238 women farmers were selected from seven selected (Grama Niladhari) GN divisions of the study area. This study was conducted to identify the areas and level of credit needed by women farmers. And also, the agricultural credit sources of was identified. Women farmers were selected by using the simple random sampling method. Questionnaire Survey was used as the data collection method from March to July 2019. Descriptive statistics was used for the data analyzing process and the result showed that, 59.7 % of the women farmers were observed within the middle ages (40-59 years), most of them were married, and 4-5 members within their family. 64.3 % of women farmers were studied up to secondary level education. Majority of the women farmers were noted that they need credit facilities for the application of agrochemicals and fertilizers. In Addition to that, utilization of modern farming technologies, transportation & marketing of agricultural products and purchasing improved seeds & livestock related credit neediness most important for them. And also, they were showed a less interest regarding the credit neediness for pre-planting activities, irrigation facilities and harvesting activities. Most of the respondents were indicated high level of credit neediness for the application of agrochemicals and fertilizers and utilization of modern farming technologies while moderate and low level of agricultural credit neediness regarding the pre-planting activities, irrigation facilities and harvesting activities within the study area. Majority of the respondents were showed savings from the previous agricultural earnings and other family member or fellow women as their major credit sources of agricultural activities. Private money lenders act as the least important credit source for agricultural activities in the study area.

  JEL CODE: Q1, Q12