Vol. 10, Special Issue 12 (2021)

Most of the vegetable production system activities are performed by women except land preparation and irrigation. They are still performing these activities in traditional manner using conventional tools. Majority of women performs weeding activity in squatting posture for long time which is very uncomfortable posture leads to lower back pain. Weeding and top dressing of fertilizer activities are women dominated and are performed in uncomfortable posture leading to masculo-Skeletal disorders and drudgery of farm women.

Hence, the study was conducted with an objective of Intervention of drudgery reducing technologies in vegetable production system for empowerment of farm women. The study was carried out in the Mulamuttala, Garaga and Lokur villages from Dharwad district of Karnataka state with the sample size of 30 farm women and ten farm women each for ergonomic analysis (Two technologies). The data was collected by survey and experimental methods. The results revealed that the work effieciency with the use of cycle weeder showed significant increase in Pace of Work (30.83 hr/acre) and saved the labour cost of Rs 1190/- as compared to traditional method of weeding (76.25 hr/acre). The use of fertilizer trolley for top dressing of fertilizer application activity in vegetable production system showed significant increase in Pace of Work (20 hr/acre), the reduction of drudgery and postural discomfort was observed and use of these technologies helps in saving of time and energy among farm women in vegetable production system and were highly appreciated and accepted by the small farming community. Thus they proved to be appropriate technologies for the farming community.