Women Participation in Urban Agriculture and its Influence on Family Economy - Sri Lankan Experience

Abstract

Urban Agriculture has an incredible ability to address various burning issues in the urban community such as poverty, malnutrition, unhygienic food stuff and food insecurity which have arisen due to the continuous increase in global urban population. Women can play a key role in urban agriculture due to their role in food management at household level. Nevertheless, at present women participation in urban agriculture is significantly unsatisfactory. In this research, primary data were collected from a sample of 82 respondents in the capital of Sri Lanka, Sri Jayawardanepura Kotte. The results of the study confirm a significant difference in the perceptions on urban agriculture among urban women farmers and urban women non-farmers. The most influential socio-economic factors affecting the women participation in urban agriculture are; age, education level, number of members in the family and total cultivable area. The time constraints for farming, poor quality of planting inputs and lack of knowledge are the mainly identified constraints that hinder women’s contribution in urban agriculture. The results of the study further reveal that the best strategy practiced by the urban women farmers to uplifting the family economy is re-investing the income or savings of household expenditure due to urban agriculture activities on same agricultural activities. Further, the fitted model on can be used to determine the level of women participation in urban agriculture.