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2009 - 200912010 - 20181
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Subject: Agricultural Extension × Start date: 1977 × Type: Thesis × Rating Count: 4 ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Scenario analysis of cardamom growers in cardamom hill reserves of Kerala
    (Department of Agricultural Extension, College of Agriculture, Vellayani, 2018) Anju, S; KAU; Kishore Kumar, N
    The present study entitled "Scenario analysis of cardamom growers in cardamom hill reserve of Kerala "was conducted on March 2018 to April 2018 in three blocks of Idukki district with the objectives: to study the current scenario of cardamom production system and analysis of the socio-economic situation among growers and good agricultural practices (GAP) and to enumerate the present challenges with respect to ecological, climatic changes as well as to explore the health externalities of cardamom growers and labourers. The study was carried out in three blocks of Idduki district namely Kattappana, Nedumkandam and Adimali, which comes under Cardamom Hills Reserve (CHR) zone. Twenty growers and ten agricultural labourers were randomly selected from each of these blocks making a sample of ninety respondents. Data was collected using a of pre- tested and well- structured interview schedule. The data’s were analysed using different statistical tools. On the analysis of data, it was found that the area under cardamom cultivation has significantly reduced in the past years. Cardamom was cultivated in an area of 40,867 ha in 1997 and it declined to 39,080 ha by the year 2017. The productivity of cardamom had increased tremendously from 130 Kg/ha to 400 Kg/ha over a decade. The major findings of the study was that majority of the farmer respondents were middle aged with sufficient farming experience, with agriculture as their primary occupation and none of them were illiterate. Majority (65.00 %) of the respondent farmers had an annual income of more than four lakh and 56 per cent of agricultural labourers had an annual income less than one lakh. Majority (66.66%) of the growers were in medium category of economic motivation, risk orientation, scientific orientation. Nearly three fourth of the growers had medium level of innovative proneness and decision making ability. As high as (81.66 %) of the growers had medium level of credit orientation and market orientation (83.33%). Less than half (48.00 %) and 11.67 per cent of the growers had low and high level of adoption respectively. The data subjected to correlation analysis between good agricultural practices and fifteen independent variables revealed that two variables viz., age and farming experience had negative and significant correlation and education status and credit orientation had positive and significant correlation. The major constraints faced by cardamom growers are: not getting the cardamom registration card was a great concern among the growers, non-availability and high cost of labour, price fluctuation and marketing problem, lack of cardamom grading facilities, lack of support price based on the cardamom production, uneven rainfall pattern and changing climate, lack of irrigation facilities, man- animal conflicts, high production cost, inadequate extension services at village level. The suggestion to improve the cardamom cultivation were, establishment of cooperative societies for the procurement of cardamom will increase the direct selling of the produce through auction centers, minimum support price based on the production of cardamom as like of other food crops, then the cultivation of cardamom will increase and the farmer get the premium price, crop demonstration about improved variety and improved technologies, which will increase the adoption of new technologies and reduce the cost of cultivation of cardamom, subsidies on inputs like bio- fertilizers and pest control agent and to promote microbial products that are much cheaper and more sustainable and give best products and protect environment and the health of labourers and the local public, establishment of cardamom dryers and grading machines, introduction of the oil extraction facilities or factories, eco-tourism/ Farm tourism.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Entrepreneurial effectiveness of agripreneurs in Kerala
    (College of Agriculture, Vellayani, 2009) Gopika, Somanath; KAU; Seema, B
    The study entitled ‘Entrepreneurial effectiveness of agripreneurs in Kerala’ was undertaken with the major objective of measuring the entrepreneurial effectiveness of the agripreneurs in Kerala, their socio-personal characteristics, the economic dimensions of the enterprises as well as the extent of possession of the entrepreneurial attributes by the agripreneurs. The study also aimed at inventorizing the agripreneurs operating in the selected districts of the state. The research project was undertaken in the Kasargod, Thrissur and Thiruvananthapuram districts of the state. From each district 60 agripreneurs comprising 20 on-farm agripreneurs, 20 off-farm agripreneurs and 20 commercial farmers were selected. Thus a total of 180 agripreneurs selected from the three districts constituted the sample for the study. The data collected was statistically analyzed using arithmetic mean, percentage, correlation, analysis of variance and principal component analysis. The inventory of the agro-enterprises prepared for the selected districts revealed that the on – farm agri-business activities such as mushroom cultivation, floriculture, apiculture, ornamental fish culture, and the animal based enterprises were found to be more predominant in the Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur districts while sericulture was more popular in the Thrissur and Kasargod districts. Nursery production was a principal agri-business activity in the Thrissur district and the number of nurseries in the district largely out numbered those in the other two districts. Among the off-farm agri-business activities, the food related processing units, the mat weaving units, the jute products units, the palm spathe products units and the paper bag units were found to be more concentrated in the Thrissur district followed by the Thiruvananthapuram district while the beedi making units were found to be more predominant in the Kasargod district. The commercial farmers were found to be more or less evenly distributed in the three districts with the commercial tobacco and areca nut farmers being restricted to the Kasargod district. The study revealed that the off-farm agripreneurs were entrepreneurially the most effective category followed by the on-farm agripreneurs and the commercial farmers who were found to be on almost on par in their effectiveness. The district-wise and category-wise comparison of the six sub-dimensions of entrepreneurial effectiveness namely production management effectiveness, finance management effectiveness, marketing management effectiveness, labour management effectiveness, risk management effectiveness and time management effectiveness revealed that majority of the respondents in all the categories in case of each sub-dimension belonged to medium effectiveness category. The on-farm agripreneurs, off-farm agripreneurs and commercial farmers exhibited significant differences in their effectiveness only in case of marketing management effectiveness and risk management effectiveness where as significant difference was observed between the agripreneurs belonging to the three districts in case of the possession all the six sub-dimensions of entrepreneurial effectiveness. The district based categories of the agripreneurs exhibited significant differences in their overall entrepreneurial effectiveness scores while the activity-based categories of agripreneurs exhibited no significant differences in their entrepreneurial effectiveness. The Principal Component Analysis of the six sub-dimensions of entrepreneurial effectiveness indicated that the first principal component accounted for the largest percentage variance in the entrepreneurial effectiveness scores of the agripreneurs with the largest magnitude of variation contributed by the sub-dimension viz. ‘Market management effectiveness’ followed by ‘Production management effectiveness’ and ‘Finance management effectiveness’. Thus it was deduced that it is the effectiveness of the agripreneurs in the management of the market for their produce which largely determine their effectiveness in the business followed by their effectiveness in the management of production and finance. Analysis of the relationship between the socio-personal variables and the entrepreneurial effectiveness of the agripreneurs revealed that age of the agripreneurs was negatively correlated with the entrepreneurial effectiveness of the agripreneurs, indicating that the agripreneurs belonging to the younger age groups were entrepreneurially more effective. The variables such as education, annual income, social participation, extension contact, mass media exposure, and the diversification of the agri-business activities were found to have positive and significant correlation with the entrepreneurial effectiveness of the agripreneurs, while the training received was found to have no significant relation with the entrepreneurial effectiveness of the agripreneurs since majority of the entrepreneurs in all the three categories received no training in relation to their enterprise activities. The correlation between the possession of the entrepreneurial attributes by the agripreneurs and their entrepreneurial effectiveness revealed that the possession of all the entrepreneurial attributes studied namely achievement motivation, self confidence, personal resourcefulness, attitude towards self employment, internal locus of control, risk orientation, economic opportunism, innovativeness, market perception and strategic visioning were positively and significantly correlated with the entrepreneurial effectiveness of the agripreneurs. The most important constraints faced by the on-farm and off-farm agripreneurs in their decreasing order of importance are the high cost of the inputs, the difficulty in securing credit and the shortage of labour and high wage rates occupying the first three ranks respectively. In case of the on farm agripreneurs the other major problems were the lack of storage facilities and the exploitation by the middle men while in case of the off-farm agripreneurs the constraints securing the fourth and the fifth ranks were the exploitation by the middle man and the lack of adequate training facilities. The commercial farmers also rated the high cost of inputs as the most important constraint followed by the labour shortage and the ever increasing wage rates, the difficulty in securing credit, the constant fluctuations in the market prices of the produce and the incidence of pests and diseases in the crops. Some of the important suggestions for improvement of the agri-business in the state includes fostering linkages between the institutions undertaking research and development activities in agriculture with the farmer’s organizations thereby ensuring them better technical back up, putting the credit systems in place, ensuring the availability of good quality inputs at reasonable costs, popularization of simple, affordable and durable post-harvest technologies for use at the farm level, establishment of small-scale collecting, cleaning, pre-cooling, grading and packaging centers in the Panchayats to reduce the post harvest losses and increase the shelf life of the perishables, establishment of contributory chilling and pasteurization plants at the village level, formation of self-help groups by the farmers for the preparation of value added products and undertaking group marketing of the products, ensuring better insurance cover for the farmers, linking the farmers co-operatives with the district or state co-operatives, to ensure better access to market intelligence, introducing facilities for grading, standardization and branding of the agricultural commodities to increase the consumer acceptance and providing incubation facilities for the processing and value addition of the agricultural produce, with suitable agencies for use by the resource poor agripreneurs.