CONSTRAINTS FACED BY THE WOMEN LABOURS WORKING IN SUGARCANE FARMING

India is one of the most important sugarcane producing countries in the world. Women working in sugarcane perform the activities manually by adopting traditional methods which are full of drudgery and have adverse effects on their health. The present investigation was carried out to know the participation of women labourers and constraints faced by them while working in sugarcane. The study revealed that female labourers were in the age group of 31-45 years. Majority of them were illiterate. As regards occupation of the farm families was farm labourer. Majority of family type was nuclear. The size of family was medium (5-8). Majority had monthly income between Rs. 7,000-/ to 9,000/-. The women were participating in the activities like manure and fertilizer application at first step, preparation of sugarcane sets for sowing, placing these sets into the ridges, irrigation, weeding, harvesting, tying the bundles, carrying sugarcane bundles and loading it in to the vehicle. After harvesting, collection of the remaining to clean the farm was carried out by the female labourers. All these activities were jointly performed with females. Harvesting was done jointly with men. Boils on face due to bite of honey bees, body pain, boils on palm, headache and irritation of the body were major health hazards experienced by the women labourersers while working in sugarcane.