Abstract

Any economic development planning of rural regions needs an initial investigation of rural womens role in the production system, hence the purpose of this descriptive- survey study was to investigate rural womens role in animal husbandry activities. The statistical population consisted of all rural families (N=6571) in Charuymaq county among which 135 were selected through a multistage randomised sampling method based on Cochrans sampling formula. The research tool was a researcher-constructed questionnaire the  validity of which was verified by a panel of experts in the related field and to check its reliability, a Cronbachs Alpha coefficient was computed which was higher than 0.7 for composite constructs. The results showed that majority of women (60.7%) had a neutral attitude toward animal husbandry activities. Hard nature of animal activities was the most important barrier of womens participation.  Preparing households food requirements (self-consumption) and feeling responsibile toward household were the most intrinsic and extrinsic motives of women regarding their participation, respectively. The majority of women had a low level of mass media information usage and TV was the first source of their information  gathering. Women had the highest participation in milking and processing and the least in grazing the animals.