Empowering Rural Women in Agro-Ecotechnologies for Livelihood Improvement and Natural Resource Management

Women in Central Himalaya have always played a significant role in managing and operating most household and agricultural activities. They are considered to be the backbone of hill agriculture. However, in recent years, environmental degradation, poor resource management and increased migration of men to the plains have worsened livelihood options and added to the workload of women in the Himalaya. In assessing the hardships and problems faced by the hill/mountain women, it was recognized that the women had to develop their capacity and skills in agro-ecotechnology if they were to improve their livelihoods as well as the conservation and management of natural resources. A total of 15 on-site training and capacity building/skill development programmes were conducted in three different ecological zones, training 635 women farmers. The overall goal was to induce the women farmers to adopt simple agro-ecotechnologies as viable options for enhancing their livelihoods. This study offers the possibility of a wider sharing of training outputs at farm level and among the scientific community, extension workers and policy makers. The experience of the training programmes has shown that there is a need to develop location-specific agro-ecotechnologies so as to maximize the use of locally available bioresources, which will reduce the cost of external inputs.