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Kamla-Raj 2006 J. Soc. Sci., 13(2): 147-149 (2006)

Development of Entrepreneurship among Rural Women

Kiranjot Sidhu and Sukhjeet Kaur

Department of Extension Education, Punjab Agricultural University,Ludhiana 141001, Punjab, India

KEYWORDS Employment; rural youth; social system; resources

ABSTRACT Entrepreneurship is the only solution to the growing employment among rural youth. It helps togenerate employment for number of people within their own social system. This is more beneficial for women in ruralareas as it enable them to add to the family income while taking care of their farm, home and livestock centered tasks.Rural women possess abundant resources to take up an enterprise. She has the benefit of easy availability of farm andlivestock based raw material and other resources. Hence she can effectively undertake both production and processingoriented enterprises. But to be a successful entrepreneur, women should process certain fundamental qualities besidethe support of the family and government organizations. Entrepreneurial development among rural women helps toenhance their person capabilities but also decision making status in the family and society as a whole.

INTRODUCTION

Development of the society is directly relatedwith the income generation capacity of itsmembers. With agriculture as the key incomegeneration activity the entrepreneurship basedon farm and home can directly affect the incomeof a major chunk of our population. The growthof modernization processes such as industriali-zation, technical change; urbanization andmigration further encourage it. Entrepreneurshipon small scale is the only solution to the problemsof unemployment and proper utilization of both

human and non human resources and improvingthe living conditions of the poor masses.

Kuratko and Richard (2001) in their book onentrepreneurship stated that it is the dynamic

process of creating incremental wealth. Thiswealth is created by individuals who take themajor risks in terms of equity, time and careercommitment of providing value to some productor services the product or service itself may ormay not be new or unique but value mustsomehow be infused by the entrepreneur bysecuring and allocating the necessary skill andresources. In other words it is the application ofenergy for initiating and building an enterprise.

Rural womens participation in agro basedactivities is much more than what statistics reveal.This is mainly due to the fact that most of thework done by the women at farm and home isdisguised as daily chores. Mechanization and

easy availability of labour provide more time toenergetic women to engage themselves in selfemployment or entrepreneurial ventures. Ruralwomen having a pool of human and non humanresources to take up an enterprise need only aninnovative mind and motivation. But a successfulentrepreneur requires some essential pre requi-sites.

Objective: To develop entrepreneurialempowerment strategies based upon the

participation of rural women in farm and homesystem.

METHODOLOGY

In order to capture the contribution of womenin varied area of her work the data was generatedthrough case studies representing the five agro-climatic zones of Punjab. The participatoryapproach was used to study each case. Ten caseseach of five distinct landholding categoriesnamely landless, marginal, small, medium and largefrom each zone were studied. The qualitative datawas thus generated from 250 rural familiesrepresented by the female decision maker of thefamily.

FINDINGS

Rural women play a vital role in farm and homesystem. She contributes substantially in the

physical aspect of farming, livestock management,post harvest and allied activities. Her direct andindirect contribution at the farm and home levelalong with livestock management operations has

Address correspondence to: Kiranjot Sidhu

Telephone: 0161-504097(R), 09814098405(M)

E-mail: sidhs64@hotmail.com

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148 KIRANJOT SIDHU AND SUKHJEET KAUR

not only helped to save but has also led toincrease in family income.. She performs various

farm, livestock, post harvest and allied activitiesand possesses skills and indigenous knowledgein these areas. This is in spite of her being thesocially suppressed ,educationally at adisadvantageous position and having a little sayin the decision making process due to lack ofindependent income source in hand. Present eraof mechanization, easy and cheap availability oflabour in Punjab has led to availability of freetime. Hence it becomes imperative to empowerthem technically so as to cope with the changingtimes and productively use her free time andexisting skills for setting and sustainingenterprises. This will not only generate income

for the family but also improve the decisionmaking capabilities of the rural women leading tooverall empowerment.

Areas for Micro-enterprise Development

Variations in role performance and direct andindirect contribution varied within the statedepending on number of factors ranging fromlandholdings, subsidiary occupations, agro-climatic conditions, and socio-personalcharacteristics of the rural women and her familymembers. Based upon the results of the casestudies the following areas for micro-enterprisesdevelopment are suggested:

Micro-enterprise Development Related toAgriculture and Allied Agricultural Activities:Women have been performing agriculturaloperations and have been very actively

participating in seed selection, seed treatment andvegetable growing. They can be trained andmotivated to adopt micro-enterprises in which herskill and patience can be exploited. Ali (1997) inhis paper on post harvest processing ofagricultural produce stated that value additionincludes processes like sorting, grading, cutting,seeding, shelling and quality packaging etc..Growing of organic vegetables, flowers, oilseedsand seed production are some of the areas beside

taking up mushroom growing and bee-keeping .Some more areas can be like dehydration of fruitsand vegetables, canning or bottling of pickles,chutneys, jams, squashes, dairy and other

products which are ready to eat.Micro-Enterprise Development Related to

Livestock Management Activities: The majorshare of work is being handled by women in

performance of livestock management operations.Hence this area needs to be exploited for micro-

enterprise development. Empowerment of womenthrough formation of self help groups and allwomen dairy and poultry cooperatives can helpwomen to control the decision making and thefinancial aspects of livestock management.Livestock feed production and production ofvermi-compost using the animal waste can be animportant area in which women can utilize bothher technical skills and raw material from the farmand livestock to earn substantial income. Valueaddition to livestock based raw material andestablishment of small scale agro-processingunits can benefit the women.

Micro-enterprise Development Related to

Household Based Operations:Women performmany household tasks besides looking after theneeds of the family. This involves taking care ofthe children, cooking cleaning the house etc. butat the same time she is equipped with skills suchas knitting, stitching, weaving, embroidery etc.Bakery and flour milling are some more examplesof the enterprises that can be taken up by womenin this area of her activity.

Personal and Environmental Prerequisites forEntrepreneurial Development

Extension Strategies to PromoteEntrepreneurship

Creating Awareness: Awakening of ruralwomen to the possibilities of the easily accessiblemicro-enterprises is the foremost task. Thegovernment, semi- government and non-government organizations should createawareness among the most productive age groupof rural women. The printed media can beeffectively put to use for the purpose.

Motivating Entrepreneurs: Psychologicalstimulation is the prerequisite for putting any ideavirtually into action. For proper motivation of ruralwomen, the economic, social and health benefitsof various possible enterprises should be

highlighted. The use of farm visits, video filmshows , dramas, puppet shows, group meetingetc. will help in motivating the potential group.

Expertise Development: After awakeningand motivating the next step in development andsuccess of an enterprise is the acquisition ofknowledge and skill up-gradation and polishingof existing knowledge and skills in production,

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149ENTREPRENEURIAL DEVELOPMENT

processing, packaging and marketing techniquesare the basic requirements. . Saha (1999) alsoemphasized the need of value addition as itensures high premium to the producer. He statedthat India ranks second in food production butonly two percent of the produce is processed .Inaddition to this, knowledge regarding accessibilityto loans, various funding agencies, proceduresregarding certification etc. should be provided.

Lectures, printed material, discussions,institutional and non institutional skill trainingsfor imparting first hand technical knowledge in

production , processing , procurement andmanagement should be provided to rural womenwho are interested or already engaged in variousenterprises.

Education in direct and indirect marketing ofthe produce and finance management should bein-built component of future training programmesfor women.

Continuous Follow-up:Constant follow- upshould be ensured for the sustainability of a emicro-enterprises. During this phase variousconstraints such as personal, social, economic,marketing etc. faced by entrepreneurs should beaddressed. Possible help in the form of knowledge,technical skills and inputs should be provided toenable them to solve their problems.

Benefits of Entrepreneurship to Rural Women

Empowering women particularly rural womenis a challenge. Micro- enterprises in rural areacan help to meet this challenge. Micro-enterprisesnot only enhance national productivity, generateemployment but also help to develop economicindependence, personal and social capabilities

among rural women. Following are some of thepersonal and socia l capabilities which aredeveloped as a result of taking up enterpriseamong rural women:

Economic empowerment

Improved standard of living

Self confidence

Enhanced awareness

Improvement in decision making status

Sense of achievement

Increased social interaction

Improvement in leadership quality

CONCLUSION

Rural women perform variety of operations infarm and home system and have basic indigenousknowledge, skill, potential and resources whichcan prove helpful to establish and manage enter-

prises. What they need is awareness, motivation,technical skill and support from family, govern-mentand other organization. With the right assistancethey can strengthen their capacities besides addingto the family income and national productivity.

REFERENCES

Ali, N. 1997. Post harvest processing of agricultureproduce for high quali ty and export . Theme paper

published in Souvenir of XXXI Annual conventionof Society of Agricultural Engineers , AgriculturalEngineering, PAU, Ludhiana.

Kuratko, Donald, F.and Richard, M Hodgetts. 2001.Entrepreneurship - A Contemporary Approach . NewYork, U.S.A: Harecourt College Publishers

Saha, S. 1999. Value addition A USP for ProcessedFood. Agriculture Today, 2(5): 46-47

Personal prerequis ites Environmen tal prerequis ites

Powerful urge Availability of infrastructural facilitiesStrong determination Venture capital availabilityHard work Technically skilled labour Risk bearing capacity Accessibility of suppliers.Emotional maturity Proximity of supporting organization/institutionKnowledge: Attitude of the area population Technical Legal MarketingAdministrative skillsFar sightedness.InnovativenessAbility to use available resourcesPrevious experience/entrepreneurial parentsEducation

Table 1 Personal and environmental prerequisites for entrepreneurial development