WOMEN IN TRIPURA AQUACULTURE: INVISIBLE ROLE OR CULTURAL HINDRANCE?
Rupali Chakraborty
Department of Fisheries, Government of Tripura, Agartala, Tripura, India.
Manidip Roy
Department of Economics, Ramkrishna Mahavidyalaya, Kailashahar, Tripura, India
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A survey coupled with several focus group discussions were conducted in the Mohanpur block of West Tripura district to understand the role of women in family and fish culture activities. The study revealed that women play a significant role in home gardening and animal husbandry activities within the homestead area, which provide them a source of income. Though fish is an integral part of the Bengali culture, women participation in aquaculture was limited. It was observed that women involvement in aquaculture had positive impact on production though the intensity of involvement was not satisfactory. Queries to understand the reasons for poor participation of women in aquaculture have revealed a number of factors like cultural hindrances, social stigma, less exposure to technical knowledge, etc. There was no conscious effort to provide training to women on aquaculture. Most of the training programmes were attended by men and the knowledge gained by them was not generally shared with women in the family. Gender bias approach in training, distance of venue, family bindings and burden were identified as the key reasons responsible for low participation of women in the training programmes. As a result of all these, women have considered aquaculture as an activity that is related largely to men only. Unlike the vegetables and animals, which women could see every day and care, fish were unseen until the harvest. Though women did not lead the decision-making process in family and lack any direct source of income, yet they felt that their rate of contribution to family economy was high. To increase women participation in aquaculture some practical steps have been suggested based on the input provided by women farmers like training opportunities based on their convenience, development of women friendly aquaculture technologies, device to view the fishes in ponds, helping hand from male counterparts to share the household activities, presence of more women extension officers’ who have willingness to work in field etc.
Keywords:
fisheries; aquaculture; tripura
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