The Women’s Role in Developing Animal and Poultry Production in Sharkia Governorate

The research aims to know the role of rural women in animal and poultry production in Sharkia Governorate and the obstacles that prevent their effective participation in the development of animal and poultry production by identifying the various economic and social activities, and then highlighting the effective role played by rural women and its importance in the development of animal and poultry production. Data were collected through personal interviews using a questionnaire prepared for this purpose, from a sample size of (143) women randomly selected from Sharkia Governorate, and descriptive and quantitative statistics methods were used. Some economic and social characteristics that affect rural women were studied such as (age, social and educational status, income, work in agriculture, number of family members), as well as knowing the role of rural women in the development of animal and poultry production through their productive activity at home from serving livestock and birds, and home food processing, as well as their role in marketing animal and poultry production products.
The research results showed that there are some factors affecting the contribution of rural women to animal and poultry production in Sharkia Governorate, where the logistic regression model was used, and the most important variables affecting the contribution of rural women to the development of animal and poultry production were (work, educational level of the respondent, income, work in agriculture, the respondent's ownership of agricultural land, ownership of animal holdings). The research results concluded that the relationship between the variable of women's work and the variable of income on the one hand and women's contribution to animal and poultry production activities on the other hand is an inverse relationship, and the results indicated that there is a direct relationship between the rest of the variables such as the variable of educational level, the variable of owning agricultural land, and the variable of owning animal holdings.
To identify the obstacles that limit women's contribution to animal and poultry production in Sharkia Governorate, the respondents differed among themselves on the extent to which they were affected by these obstacles, the existence of negative customs and traditions against rural women's work, representing 87% of the opinions, followed by the lack of capital needed to purchase animal and poultry production requirements, representing 85% of the opinions, then comes the problem of high prices of animal and poultry production requirements, representing 83% of the opinions, followed by some of the tools and methods that women use at home are still traditional and primitive, such as preserving milk, making cream, butter and ghee, representing 80% of the opinions, followed by the lack of animal and poultry production requirements, representing 66% of the opinions, the products marketed by rural women face many challenges and obstacles, the most prominent of which is the distance of markets from rural areas, as this problem represents 55% of the opinions. The research results also showed some means and proposals to enhance the role of rural women in developing animal and poultry production.
At the forefront of these means is the interest in the educational status of rural women, which represents 98% of the opinions. This is followed by opening markets and outlets for selling products near the village, which represents 94% of the opinions. Then comes the proposals for both reducing the prices of animal and poultry production requirements and updating the tools, equipment and methods used by rural women in agricultural and food manufacturing inside the home, such as using a separator when making cream and churn when making butter and ghee, and other advanced methods and tools that lead to reducing the rates and rates of loss and producing a food product that meets the specifications, which leads to an increase in its price. This represents the same percentage of opinions, which is 93%. In addition to the above, it is important to provide financial and technical support to raise the awareness of rural women in the field of agricultural projects.