WOMEN IN THE ADOPTION OF RICE-BASED FARMING TECHNOLOGIES IN REGION III, PHILIPPINES
Rice-farming is a critical area where gender issues need critical analysis. Examining and enhancing women rice farmers’ level of access to and control of resources and benefits of production are needed in the goal of empowering them in order to lessen their marginalization... The project aimed to assess the role of women as well as men in rice-based farming technologies in selected communities in Region III. The project made use of a descriptive method of research wherein a total of 395 respondents were interviewed from the seven provinces of Region III. A questionnaire was formulated and used for collecting data. Results showed that majority of the male spouse respondents are head of the family except for Pampanga with 50-50 % male-female spouse family headship and are members of farmers’ organizations with the majority of the male occupying top positions in the organization while female occupy Secretary, Treasurer and Bookkeeper positions. Respondents were classified under the low-income but not poor cluster. Fund sourcing for farm operations was mostly done by both male and female spouse except when fund is sourced as loan from external sources. Most of the respondents adopted rice-rice-rice cropping pattern which is a mutual male-female decision, however, the decision on what to plant after rice is done by the male-spouse and generally, the source of labor in all rice cultural management activities is male, whether from the family or hired. On the other hand, women had more access to technical information in general and perform other farm related jobs such as providing food (55%) and paying hired labor (44%). The decision to sell produce mostly done by both female and male spouse except selling all produce in excess for family use which is decided by the male spouse.
Women Empowerment, Rice Farming Technologies, Region III, Philippines.