சுருக்கம்

Women of Fishing Community: Unsung Women's Role in Foxnut Production

Khushboo Shimran*

Foxnut or Makhana (Euryale ferox) is one of the important aquatic plants in the northern part of Bihar, and it is grown annually by the traditionally skilled mallah community. Women of this community perform numerous labor-intensive activities such as weeding, collections, cleaning, drying, gradation, roasting, frying, popping, rubbing, storage, transportation during foxnut cultivation and production. They execute continuous work of first frying to second frying of foxnut seeds to pop and thrash to grading with their family members at home. Thus the study was carried out to explore women’s involvement in foxnut production and their challenges. The study has been conducted in the north-eastern region and north-western region of the Kosi basin. Two hundred households of fishing communities were selected based on involvement in foxnut production activities. Data were collected from selected households by interviewing women and men at their premises with the help of an interview schedule. Most of the respondents were illiterate. 55.5 percent of women took decisions related to family planning, and 65.5 percent of women decided to give debt to others. 60.5 percent of women were selling fish, and 32 percent of women were working as labor. They had less than five thousand rupees of earnings. Few women were engaged in farming. Above 66 percent of women were engaged in post-harvesting activities. 67.5 percent of women did not know the seed collection process, and 79.5 percent had no awareness of the value addition of foxnut pop into different products.