Use of indigenous agricultural technologies by the rural men and women farmers in Bangladesh

The paper focuses on the differential attributes of rural men and women in using indigenous technologies in farming and household activities. Data wer e collected by two trained interviewers from three agro-ecological zones of Bangladesh, namely, Ranspur, Mymensingh, and Comilla from 159 randomly sel ected households (48 male and 111 female) out of a total population of 1301 during 10 April to 02 October, 1996 through interview schedule. Selected p arameters of the respondents such as their age, education, farming/househol d experience, and farm size were included in the schedule for measurement. In all 44 indigenous technologies were enlisted in the schedule. The indige nous technologies were identified through PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisa l) prior to finalizing the schedule. Only the potential indigenous technolo gies were retained in the schedule. The findings reveal that a greater proportion of the rural women and men we re illiterate and were in young and middle-aged categories, respectively, a nd had substantially high level of farming and household experience. The ma jority of the rural men belonged to the small farmer category, while most o f the women were landless sharecroppers. Areas of use of indigenous technol ogies by the men and women showed marked differences. The men were mostly i nvolved in using indigenous technologies in the field crops such as raising rice seedlings from the seed bed, sowing seeds in the fields, transplantin g seedlings in the field, applying fertilizers in the field, inter-cultural operations in the field, and irrigating crop fields. On the other hand wom en were involved in using indigenous technologies in crops usually on the v egetables and fruits within and around homesteads.