Abstract:
Lack of labour and time-saving device is one of the major difficulties which especially rural
women are facing in performing their day to day activities (3). The non-availability of
improved devices, which contribute for saving time and energy does not affect agricultural
production only, but also the well-being and health of family members too. Bosurp, cited by Wudnesh has also stated that when women’s time and energy is devoted to heavy work load,
less attention is given to child care and family feeding responsibilities (13).
"Enset" (Enset vetricosum), which is the main source of food for densely populated areas
of Sidamo, Illubabor, Keffa and some parts of Shoa is also a type of food source which
demands labour intensive processing carried out by women. Unlike the milling of cereals,
"enset" has to pass though different processing stages (decortication, pulverization,
shredding, fermentation and squeezing) to be ready for human consumption. In addition,
the few studies conducted on "enset" plant are directed to its production aspect only, and
does not integrate the processing aspect which adds heavy work load on women beside other household and social responsibilities. Thus the project on the study of "enset" processing and development of processing tools needed to decorticate, pulverise
