Role of Women in Goat Farming in Mid Hills of Nepal

Goat (Capra hircus) basically Khari goat is one of the components of livestock sector of subsistence farming in Nepal. Subsistence farming of goat practice is shifting towards commercial farming and lead farmers are proceeding towards introducing new breed of goat. Boer goat with high potentiality for good carcass quality has been promoting by the government through its research and development institutions to the farmers. Women play significant roles in the domestic and national socioeconomic development of the country. Although some research work has been done on issues of women and gender in agriculture and related sciences, it has been insufficiently addressed and lack to identify actual roles of women's in goat production and management. Beside this 56% HHs are having migrants with higher percent of male outmigrants added additional burden as well opportunities for women to be involved in different roles in different sectors. This study therefore was designed to examine women's roles in goats management in the mid hill region of Nepal. Dhading district is one of the Boer goat pocket area, therefore; selected for this study to find out appropriate roles played by women in goat rearing and production systems. To address the genders role in goat farming system, data from the variables related to socioeconomic characteristics were analyzed to find out the mean difference and also t value was calculated. Among the selected variables involvement of male, farm land holding size, access to credit and training variables were highly significant at 1 percent. The contribution of economically active age was significant at 1 percent. Involvement of male farmer in Boer goat production was highly significant at 1 percent level of significance. Land area, access to credit and training taken was also highly significant at 1 percent for the adoption of Boer goat. Women in male-headed households rarely that are only 2% have control over income from goat sales. But in case of women headed household especially in subsistence goat farming the primary goal of selling goat is to cover emergencies and household needs