Women empowerment through Dairy farming: A study in Imphal west district of Manipur

India is the world’s largest milk producer and primarily an agricultural society where animal husbandry is the backbone of the national economy. Woman empowerment is the process of building a woman’s capacity to be self-reliant and to develop her sense of inner strength. Dairying in India is a female dominated enterprise. It is established beyond doubt that women always participated in dairy and animal husbandry activities in addition to their daily household chores. Women spent more time than men in dairy production activities. The present study was conducted to know the role of women dairy husbandry practices in Imphal district of Manipur State. A simple random sampling technique was used in the selection of dairy farm women. The total sample 100 no questioner was to dairy farm women, 65 were randomly collected from selected villages of Manipur. The selected respondents were interviewed personally with the help of a pre tested and well-structured interview schedule to elicit information. They were actively involved in various aspects of dairy farming activities like care of new born calf, cleaning of animal shed, cleaning of utensils, storage of concentrates, feeding young calf, diagnosis of common disease and care at home level, care of sick animals, watering the livestock, offering the concentrate mixture, soaking the concentrate mixture, care during pregnancy, disposal of infected litter materials, grooming, cleaning and bathing buffaloes and cows. It is also observed that the participation of women was less in enrichment of dry fodder, money transaction like involvement in banking process, purchasing and sell of animals, maintenance of account financial records, maintenance of farm records, involvement in dairy co-operatives and purchasing of equipment’s.