Womens workload and their role in agricultural production in Ambo district, Ethiopia

The Government of Ethiopia is working towards mainstreaming gender in all sector programmes, including agriculture. Women, despite having key role in advancing agricultural development and food security, their contribution is undervalued and they have been neglected in the making of agricultural policies. With the aim of tackling gender issues in agricultural production this study estimated total hours spent in farm associated tasks, identified activities performed by women and examined the influence of selected socio-economic characteristics of women on their participation in agricultural production. A two-stage random sampling technique was used to select 180 respondents for this study. The research was carried out by the use of well-structured questionnaires to obtain the necessary data. The relationship between selected socio-economic characteristics of the respondents and their total hours spent on agricultural activity was determined using ordinary least square (OLS) regression. The findings reveal that, while women are found with less agricultural resources and low decision making power, they spent 26 h per week in farm activities showing high rate of involvement in agricultural production. It was also found that marital status, income and age had significant impact on women participation in agricultural production. It is recommended that women agricultural productivity should be enhanced by improving their access to agricultural resources and developing policies and technologies targeting women related agricultural activities.   Key words: Women, work load, agriculture, Ethiopia.