Technological need assessment and capacity building for empowering farm women in livestock rearing

The present study has been conducted to explore the technological needs of women farmers related to livestock rearing practices, organising inter institutional training programmes and assess the effectiveness of various technological options. During the study aspect-wise data was gathered through interview method from 120 farm women belonging to four villages namely Dhikoli, Domagor, Karari and Hastinapur in Jhansi district of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is evident from the overall knowledge mean score that women farmers had minimum knowledge in fodder production systems/practices (0.24) and feeding technologies (0.24). Their knowledge about housing and sanitation (0.75) and breeding technologies (0.96) was also found very low. In case of health care (1.02) and management (1.22) also they possessed imperfect knowledge regarding cleanliness and management of calf, pregnant, lactating and adult livestock and not able to detect exact sign of diseases and their treatment. Based on the analysis a technological framework was developed for empowering women farmers in livestock rearing and inter institutional training programmes have been organised in selected villages as per technological framework developed. The knowledge gain for various technologies related to improved livestock breeding, feeding, health care, management, housing and sanitation was calculated. t- value of the difference between pre training and post training knowledge indicated the significant differences. Hence, It was concluded that with the help of inter institutional training programmes including interactive meeting + lecture + demonstration + visit module, knowledge of the women farmers on livestock rearing practices can be improved significantly