Nutritional Status and Socio-Economic Profile of Farm Women in Aspirational Districts of Tamil Nadu

Aim: “Women in agriculture” is a widely discussed arena but nutrition of women in agriculture is yet to be explored thoroughly. The current paper focuses on farm women in aspirational districts. These are the districts identified by NITI Aayog which are the poorly performing in a state in various developmental dimensions. Hence, the current paper aims at understanding the nutritional status and socio- economic profile of farm women in these districts assuming their higher vulnerability to malnutrition.

Study Design: Survey design was used for the current study.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted in Tamil Nadu from 2018 -2022 as part of PhD research work, affiliated to National Dairy Research Institute.

Methods: Virudhunagar and Ramanathapuram are the two districts identified as aspirational districts in Tamil Nadu. From each district, two blocks were randomly selected. Two villages were selected from each block randomly and 10 farm women from households having at least 2 milch animals and cultivating for atleast on crop season were selected from each village purposively. Hence a total of 8 villages and 180 farm women of reproductive age (18-49yrs) were included in the sample. Mean dietary diversity Score and Body Mass Index were taken as indicators for nutritional status of farm women.

Results: It was found that a 49.44% of the farm women had only 4 food groups in the last 24 hours followed by 28.89 percent with 5 to 6 food groups and 21.67 percent with 7 to 10 food groups. Only 41.67 percent of the respondents had BMI in the normal range. Around 30 percent of the farm women were underweight, 20 percent were overweight and 8 percent of them were obese. The results call for immediate attention and interventions for ensuring nutritional security of farm women in general and aspirational districts in particular.