PARTICIPATION OF RURAL WOMEN IN HOMESTEAD VEGETABLE CULTIVATION OF NABINAFAR UPAZILA UNDER BRAHMANBARIA DISTRICT IN BANGLADESH

The study was conducted in five villages of Nabinagar upazila under Brahmanbaria district during July 18 to August 25, 2014. A structured interview schedule was used for data collection to assess the extent of participation of rural women in homestead vegetable cultivation and to explore the relationship between each of the selected characteristics of the rural women and their extent of participation in homestead vegetable cultivation. Data were collected from randomly selected 120 no. of rural women within a total of 594 samples population. The research revealed that the highest proportion (52.5%) of the respondent had medium participation in homestead vegetable cultivation while 36.7 percent had low participation and 10.8 percent had high participation. By calculation of the Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation, it was found that farm size, agricultural training and innovativeness had significant positive relationships with their homestead vegetable cultivation. On the other hand age, education, family size, family income, knowledge of homestead vegetable cultivation and cosmopoliteness had no significant relationship with their homestead vegetable cultivation.