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Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour
Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour established on 5th August, 2010 is a basic and strategic institution supporting more than 500 researchers and educationist towards imparting education at graduate and post graduate level, conducting basic, strategic, applied and adaptive research activities, ensuring effective transfer of technologies and capacity building of farmers and extension personnel. The university has 6 colleges (5 Agriculture and 1 Horticulture) and 12 research stations spread in 3 agro-ecological zones of Bihar. The University also has 21 KVKS established in 20 of the 25 districts falling under the jurisdiction of the University. The degree programmes of the university and its colleges have been accredited by ICAR in 2015-16. The university is also an ISO 9000:2008 certified organisation with International standard operating protocols for maintaining highest standards in teaching, research, extension and training.VisionThe Bihar Agricultural University was established with the objective of improving quality of life of people of state especially famers constituting more than two third of the population. Having set ultimate goal of benefitting society at large, the university intends to achieve it by imparting word-class need based agricultural education, research, extension and public service.
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ThesisItem Open Access Quality Evaluation and Query Pattern Analysis of Farmers Helpline Service(Department of Extension Education, BAU, Sabour, 2023) Kumar, Shivam; Patil, ShridharThe study titled “Quality evaluation and query pattern analysis of farmers’ helpline service” was conducted during 2022-23 in Bihar State. The study aimed to measure the perceived quality of farmers' helpline services, undertake a longitudinal analysis of queries made by farmers at the farmers' helpline, and document the most frequently made queries at the farmers' helpline. The study was based on a thematic analysis of 5060 queries made by farmers during the period of the last six years (August 2016 to July 2022). Further, the service quality evaluation was done based on the telephonic interview of randomly selected 120 farmers' helpline users. The Likert-type scale with 19 statements over four factors was developed using the Likert scaling method suggested by Edwards (1957) and the iterative exploratory principal axis factor analysis. It was found that farmers' helpline service quality has four underlying factors, namely, dependability, accessibility, understandability and communication effectiveness. A large majority of farmers perceived that farmers' helpline services have above-average dependability (67.50 %), understandability (62.50 %) and communication effectiveness (72.50 %). However, 41.67 % of the farmers perceived the helpline has below-average accessibility. The longitudinal thematic analysis revealed that a large majority of farmers' queries are related to theme package of practice (30.49 %) followed by plant protection measures (24.66 %), livestock management (16.40 %), seeds and planting material availability (9.07 %), training and skill development (7.39 %), government schemes (3.99 %), nutrient management (3.46 %), admission to various degree programmes (2.96 %), weed management (2.57 %), weather forecasting (1.52 %) and sowing/planting of crops (1.11 %). Crop/livestock enterprise-related farmers query analysis revealed that 36.75 percent of queries associated with this theme were concerned with goatery. The next most frequently enquired queries were associated with mango, followed by rice, mushroom, wheat, papaya, maize, brinjal, chili and strawberry. The longitudinal analysis also revealed that the queries across all the thematic categories were mainly made during the mid-kharif and early rabi season, constituting 68.89 per cent of the total queries. This trend is found to be more distinct in the case of themes like sowing (85.71 %), weed management (81.54 %), livestock (79.16 %), seed and planting material availability (77.78 %), the package of crop cultivation practices (73.36 %), nutrient management (73.14 %) and weather advisory (70.13 %). It was also found that a large majority of queries were made during June- December, constituting more than 70 percent of total queries. Among the most frequently made 100 queries, the majority were related to theme plant protection (57 %), followed by seeds and planting material availability (14 %), the package of practices (13 %), training and skill development (5 %), livestock and poultry (3 %), crop nutrient management (3 %), government schemes (2 %) and weather forecast (1 %). Similarly, crop-wise analysis of the most frequent queries made by farmers revealed that among the most frequently made 100 queries, the highest number of queries were associated with rice (16 %), followed by mango (10 %). It was found that, after 2017-18, the number of queries received at the farmers' helpline center declined significantly. This decline may be attributed to various factors, including increased access to internet-based information sources. In addition, the database of farmers' queries generated over a period of time is not being utilized for any analytical purposes. In light of these shortcomings and emerging situations, the study recommended that efforts be made to enhance farmers' access to helpline services. Efforts must also be made towards shifting helpline services from conventional landline telephone mediums to web-based platforms. This shit will provide alternative access options and enable the development and utilization of voice and text-based query databases to implement artificial intelligence-based interactive advisory systems. Such data may also be used to identify emerging challenges and problems in agriculture and provide input for prioritizing research and extension priorities of the university and line departments.ThesisItem Open Access Social Network Analysis of Direct seeded Rice in Bihar(Department of Extension Education, BAU, Sabour, 2022) Christopher, Kevin; Paswan, AnilThe study titled “Social Network Analysis of Direct Seeded Rice in Bihar” was conducted during the year 2021-22 in the Bhagalpur and West Champaran districts of Bihar with the purpose (i) to identify social network of different innovation- diffusion process of direct seeded rice, (ii) to assess the attributes of those social network, (iii) to understand the role of different actor in diffusion process and (iv) to generate suggestions for improving the efficacy of social network in the diffusion process. The study was carried out in the Sultanganj and Kahalgaon blocks of the Bhagalpur district and Nautan and Bairiya of West Champaran district. 60 respondents from each blocks who were growing direct seeded rice were purposefully chosen to participate in the data collection, thus the total number of respondents were 240. The data was coded, tabulated, and statistical analysis was performed on it. Numerous statistical methods, including frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and statistical software such as SPSS and UCINET-6 were used to analyse the data. Results of the study on the socioeconomic traits of the respondent farmers revealed that the age of average respondent farmers was between 44-64 years in both districts. The respondent farmers’ modal education attainment was ‘middle school’ in Bhagalpur and ‘primary school’ in West Champaran district. The average family size was medium in Bhagalpur district and high in West Champaran district. The respondent farmers’ modal family type was ‘joint’ in both the district. In Bhagalpur district average land holding of the respondent farmers was small and marginal in West Champaran district with agriculture as their primary source of income. The respondent farmers' modal income ranged from 75000 to 150000. The average farming experience of the respondent farmers was above 25 years in Bhagalpur and between 10 to 25 years in West Champaran district. The average respondent farmers had medium level of mass media exposures, cosmopoliteness and extension contact. Additionally, the investigation into the social networks of various innovation diffusion processes for direct-seeded rice indicated that there were total 120 actors with the web of 234, 270, 371, 322, 297, 256, 234 and 322 ties in the communication networks of direct seeded rice on seed and planting material, agricultural packages of practices, nutrients, irrigation, plant protection, harvesting, credit and government schemes in Bhagalpur district with the network density for all the eight domain of 16, 19, 26, 23, 21, 21, 16, 23 per cent respectively. The average degree were 1.9, 2.2, 2.96, 2.6, 2.47, 2.32, 1.9, and 2.6 per cent for the domains. Similarly, for west Champaran district total 120 actors with the web of 214, 128, 201, 198, 188, 126, 172 and 191 ties in the communication networks of direct seeded rice on seed and planting material, agricultural packages of practices, nutrients, irrigation, plant protection, harvesting, credit and government schemes domain were studied. They had network densities of 15, 10, 14, 11, 7, 13, 12 and per cent for each of the eight domains with average degree of 1.78, 1.78, 2.37, 1.58, 1.56, 2.33, 2.33 and 1.5 per cent in West Champaran district. Further, study on different attributes of social network such as network density, degree centrality, closeness centrality and betweenness centrality showed that network density (measure of linkage) was high for nutrients domain followed by government schemes, the mean in degree centrality (measures of tie directed toward an actors from other actors) was high for nutrients domain, the mean in closeness centrality (measures of closeness) was high for plant protection domain followed by government schemes, the between centrality (measures of liaison relationship) was high for credit domain followed by plant protection domain in Bhagalpur district. In the West Champaran district, the mean degree centrality was high for the domain of seeds and planting materials, the mean closeness centrality was high for the harvesting domain followed by the agricultural packages of practices domain, and the mean betweenness centrality was high for the credit domain then irrigation and harvesting domain. The study on central actors' contributions to diffusion process revealed that the employees of Krishi Vigyan Kendra, the Agricultural Technological Manager, opinion leaders, progressive farmers, farmers' friends, and the agricultural coordinator were important actors in the diffusion of innovation in the Bhagalpur district. In West Champaran district central actors involved in diffusion process were Agricultural Technical Manager, progressive farmers, farmers’ friends, opinion leaders, Krishi Vigyan Kendra personnel and agricultural coordinator. Major suggestion which were generated at the time of interview from respondent farmers revealed that conducting training for farmers, holding demonstrations and minikit trails in order to effective gain knowledge about the direct seeded rice followed by timely credit and resources supply as some of the main suggestions in Bhagalpur district. In West Champaran district, the primary recommendations made at the time of the interview by the respondent farmers included provision of timely financing and resources to farmers followed by the provision of expert services and resource development for key and central actors, utilization of information and communication technology for promotion of direct seeded rice among farmers network. Based on the study it can be concluded that introduction of new innovation needs to be promoted at grassroots level of farmers. Direct seeded rice is a new and an innovative technology which is being diffused among famers network at a slow pace. To accelerate the pace of the diffusion of direct seeded rice or any new innovation there is need of promotion of such innovation among farmers social network. The development of key and pivotal actors' capacities is crucial since their participation in the dissemination process is crucial. Additionally essential are government initiatives for the diffusion and promotion of specific new innovations. Therefore, it is advised that focus be placed on direct seeded rice promotion and dissemination activities among farmers' social networks.ThesisItem Open Access Factors Promoting Agripreneurship: An In-Depth Study(Department of Extension Education, BAU, Sabour, 2022) Biswas, Nupur; Panda, Chandan KumarPh.D. research work on “Factors Promoting Agripreneurship: An In-Depth Study” is based on the perception of agripreneurs of Bihar. Total eighty respondents were surveyed for this research work, which includes 20 respondents those were taken from each four districts namely, Patna, Purnea, Nalanda and Bhagalpur. There are three agro-climatic zones in Bihar comprising North-West (Zone-I), North-East (Zone-II) and South-Bihar (Zone-III). The lists of respondents was collected from KVKs and BAMETI (Bihar Agriculture Management and Extension Training Institute) and agripreneurs of concerned field under the jurisdiction of Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour was taken for study. Objectives of the study are 1) to document the entrepreneurial journey of selected respondents, 2) to identify the motivational factors associated with agripreneurship, 3) to study the determinants of success in agripreneurship and 4) to find out the enabling factors for developing an effective entrepreneurial eco-systems perceived by the respondents. The data was collected by survey method and then recorded and compiled. The findings showed that majority of agripreneurs were male (77.50 %) since in business male is dominating and having age less than 45 years that means most of them belongs to younger stage. They were only passed intermediate as in the rural areas as lesser number of people are educated, most of the agripreneurs were from backward class. They are from joint family whose family income is more than Rs. 80 lakhs. So, their houses are pacca. Majority of the agripreneurs are in progressive stage (67.50 %),majority of the agripreneurs are borrowing money from friends and relatives (37.39 %) due to high interest rate or do not get loans easily. Mentoring support is negatively correlated with the annual income from the enterprise. Legal and administrative factors are negatively correlated with the annual income from the enterprise. Legal and administrative support, mentor support and family type are the most important factors that helped in the growth of the enterprise among all independent variableThesisItem Open Access A Study on Rural Migration in Bihar(Department of Extension Education, BAU, Sabour, 2021-03) Dash, Pratyush Kumar; Tigga, A. S.Migration (Human migration) refers to the movement of a person or group of persons, either across an international border, or within a state. Migration stands as a strong indicator of population change along with fertility and mortality. This study focuses on understanding the very nature of migration among the rural population in the Bihar state of India. Purnia district was selected purposively for this research study as studies earlier have shown a high incidence of migration over the rural expanse therein. The data were collected using random and purposive sampling techniques. A total of 120 rural migrants were selected randomly from Baisi and Dagarua blocks (60 each) of Purnia district of Bihar. This study aims at examining the socio-economic profile of the rural migrants, identifying the factors responsible for migration and enquiring about the socio-economic implication of migration on the families of the migrants. Statistical tools used to analyse the data collected were frequency, per cent, weighted mean, standard deviation and ranking. Majority of the rural migrants were from the age group of 20-30 years, were married and were illiterate. Most of them practiced ‘Muslim’ religion and belonged to the Extremely Backward Classes (EBC). The rural migrants mostly maintained a family of 5-7 members living in kutcha houses and majority of them were found to be landless. Prior to migration, most of rural migrants used to earn in the range of ₹ 3766 - ₹ 7532 monthly whereas after migration, income increased and majority started earning monthly in the range of ₹ 7533 and above. Most of the migrants moved to Delhi for construction work up to a period of 6 months and returned back. The rural migrant workers were found to be doing casual and unskilled work for 8 hours daily in their workplaces at the host areas and were provided daily wages. Responsibility arising due to marriage emerged out to be the major social push factor while the economic and work environment push factors were low income and irregular employment opportunities respectively, which pushed the migrants away from their place of origin. On the other hand, major social, economic and work environment pull factors were fewer social barriers, better economic opportunities and regular work availability at the host areas. The socio-economic implications of migration on the families of the migrants were observed mainly on family income, followed by a positive impact on food quality, communication, children’s education, health of the family members, stress level of the family members, housing, clothing of the family members, social participation and knowledge or skills acquired by the family members. This study brings out the fact that there is a serious lack of employment in the rural areas which shoves the people out of their homes to move for work. Creation of employment opportunities in the rural areas by bending the path of rural people towards agricultural and allied sectors may kill their need to migrate outside their places of origin.ThesisItem Open Access Instructors’ Motivation, Instructional Quality and Perceived Challenges in Development of MOOCs(Department of Extension Education, BAU, Sabour, 2021-03) Anand, Rohini; Datt, RamA Massive Open Online course (MOOCs) is a free web based programme of learning that has unlimited participants. It has been designed for geographically dispersed students. It is a new concept started in 2008 which is now experiencing a wider acceptance. To find the purpose behind offering MOOCs by instructors can be a very new topic under which research can be carried out. The instructional quality and perceived challenges while designing and development of MOOCs can be very interesting topic. This study was conducted on topic “Instructors’ Motivation, Instructional Quality and Perceived Challenges in Development of MOOCs” with the specific objectives 1) To identify instructors’ motivation in development of MOOCs 2) To measure perceived instructional quality of MOOCs for effective teaching 3) To document perceived challenges in development of MOOCs. This study was conducted online through Google form. In India, there are mainly two platforms involved in conducting MOOCs programme namely SWAYAM and agMOOCs portal. The respondents were mainly selected from these two platforms for the study. The result showed that instructors were offering MOOCs because they find it enjoyable and interesting to do so. They were intrinsically motivated and were confident enough to perform this task in a more competent way. They believe in one’s ability to complete their task in a more successful way. The instructional quality is one of the most important function or components in MOOCs. The result of this study revealed that skill development, collective knowledge among the learners and the MOOCs associated with real world problem were most important instructional qualities to be focused on. Coming towards the result of our objective three, the main problem associated with MOOCs designing is content development which can fulfill the demand of learners, engaging learners to stay connected till the end. Other hurdles can be summarized as time limitation of developing MOOCs, technical issues, managing MOOCs platform, getting learner feedback and internet speed. In conclusion, this study recommended that instructors with high self- efficacy are involved in the MOOCs development as it requires a high commitment to tackle all the barriers involved in designing and development of MOOCs.ThesisItem Open Access Study the Challenges and Opportunities of Agricultural Development in a Village: A Case Study(Department of Extension Education, BAU, Sabour, 2019-05-25) Kumar, Neeraj; Singh, S. R.India live in villages and the later continue to be the sole basic units of administration in the country since time immemorial. However, quite ironically, the ‘village’ is often associated with ‘backwardness’, tradition’ or ‘conservative attitude’. Bihar is a state blessed with fertile lands, diverse climatic situations and large human as well as natural agricultural resources. But it is also a state which faces the persistent problems like fragmented land holdings, poor farm infrastructure, poor access to extension services and high population density and resultant poverty. The low average yields of most commodities, the huge gaps between the demonstrated and generally realized yields, the low farmers’ income and widespread rural poverty despite the blessed richness of the natural resources needs a holistic system based approach to simultaneously enhance productivity, profitability, equity and environmental sustainability through synergistically integrating crops including horticultural and other cash crops, livestock, fisheries, agro forestry, watershed-based soil and water management, social capital formation, agro-processing and marketing in an end-to end mode. In order to understand as to how to address the constraints and problems in agriculture to lead to overall development, an in-depth study of one village needed to be undertaken and on the basis of the database, a development programme needed to be undertaken. Only such an experience of working in a village could provide an insight for future village development programmes on large scale. Keeping this in aim in view, this research study entitled “Study the Challenges and Opportunities of Agricultural Development in a Village: A Case Study” was conceptualized with the following specific objectives: 1 To study the situational profile of the farmers and the village. 2 To assess the livelihood diversification pattern among the farmers. 3 To identify the opportunities of agricultural development in the selected Village. 4 To determine the challenges and constraints of the agricultural development in the selected village. Twin villages, Birnaudha and Barhari of Goradih block in Bhagalpur district of Bihar state which were already selected under FARMER FIRST Programme of ICAR by Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour (BAU, Sabour) were selected purposively for this investigation. This study aimed to build valuable data base for this all-inclusive development programme so that planning and execution of the programme could have a data support and could provide a benchmark for evaluation of achievements of the efforts made under the programme. But total households in these villages numbered more than 1,300. Considering the limitation of a Student’s study with respect to time and resources, only 400 farm families were randomly selected for this investigation. The variables of the study were selected through a lot of discussion with the scientists working in the Farmer First Project, progressive farmers of the villages and other scientists of the University who enjoined wide field experience. These variables were operationally defined and measures were decided objectively and scientifically. For measuring some variables like Socio-economic status, gender participation and marketing behavior of the respondents, well established scales were used and for other variables, schedules were developed. The entire schedule was pre-tested for its reliability and validity. The data collected with the help of schedule was subjected to suitable statistical analysis and results were discussed in the light of literature available in the subject area of the study. The majority of the respondents (68.75%) were in the age of 36-50 years, belonged to BC II Category (65.0 %), about 47.0 per cent respondents possessed high school and above qualification, while 14.25 per cent were illiterate. Further, the majority of them (86.25%) had nuclear families and family size of 57.50 percent was medium. About 70.00 percent respondents were marginal farmers, 45.0 percent possessed Pucca houses 35.0 percent had mixed type of houses. Agriculture was the sole occupation of 32.50 percent respondents only. There were 28.75 percent respondents doing the work of labour along with farming. About half of the respondents (52.75%) had an annual income in the range of Rs. 50.001 to 75,000 and income above Rs. 1.0 lakh was of 7.25 percent respondents only. About 54.25 percent had medium level of material possession followed by low (27.25%) and high level (18.50%). Under the above background, the majority of respondents (75.0%) had received some training in agriculture, from one day to more than 10-days duration. But still 53.75 percent respondents had medium level of knowledge followed by 36.25 percent having low level of knowledge of important farm technologies. So, large adoption gap (67.0%) exists with respect to improved technology of commonly cultivated crops. Component-wise, maximum gap was found with respect to Plant protection measures (91.0%). It was followed by seed treatment (90.0%). The adoption gaps were also very large with respect to improved varieties and seed materials (75.0%), intercultural operation (70.0%), water management (66.0%), fertilizer management (63.0%) and sowing methods and time of planting (51.0%). Out of six personalized sources of information, neighbours were used regularly by maximum number of respondents (44.50%) followed by relatives (41.0%). Among mass contact sources, Kisan Diary was most regularly used source of technical information (45.0%), other sources played marginal role. The majority of the growers (61.12 %) sold their produce immediately after the harvest. The majority of the growers (88.88%) used Tempo/Jeep for transportation of their agricultural produce to the market. Livelihood diversification was found with 48.50 percent respondents at medium level and 27.25 percent at high level. The Index Value of the financial capitals was highest (62.14) whereas of Human capitals was the lowest (48.92). The associations of Extension contact and mass media contacts with all the five livelihood capitals and the overall security were positive and highly significant. The fertile soil for cultivation was perceived by the respondents to be the most important factor for agricultural development. Major crops grown in this villages are rice, wheat, maize, potato & other vegetables. However, the agricultural sector in the village is plagued with numerous, and well known, constraints and problems. The present study discusses the issues plaguing the agricultural sector in the village, Bihar and talks about the possible opportunities interventions to make the best use of available resources adopting a multi-pronged strategy of development. It also talks about the village specific problems and suggests ways and means to tackle them.ThesisItem Open Access Farmers’ perception towards climate change and Adaptation in Bihar: A gender perspective(Department of Extension Education, BAU, Sabour, 2018-07-25) Pandey, Neha; Singh, S. R.The present study was an attempt to understand the perception of farmers about climate change and document the adaptation strategies to climate change in Bihar. The constraints faced by the farmers in adaptation were also examined. A comparable vulnerability index of both men and women farmers was calculated. This investigation was carried out in four purposively selected districts of Bihar state. This investigation was carried out in four purposively selected districts of Bihar state .A total of 240 respondents, 120 being male and 120 being female were selected as the sample size. The study was conducted in 8 villages selected both purposively and randomly. A multi stage sampling design was adopted to select the sample size. The major findings of the study revealed that Majority (50.00 per cent) of the men farmers and 45.83 per cent of the women farmers were of the middle age group. Majority of the women farmers and 30.00 per cent of the men farmers were illiterate. Majority of the men and women farmers were of OBC category. Majority (60.00 per cent and 76.67 per cent) of the men and women farmers were of the joint family type. Majority of the respondents were having family size greater than 5 members. Majority of the men and women respondents were having medium farming experience. About social participation, very few respondents were member of milk federation, school and few women were member of self help group in their village. Majority (70.83 per cent) of the farmers were marginal land holders while 16.67 per cent of the farmers were small land holders, and only 6.67 per cent of the farmers were big land holders. Majority of the men and women farmers were of medium annual income. Only 18.33 per cent of men farmers and 37.50 per cent of the women farmers had acquisition of credit. Majority (70.80 per cent and 80.00 per cent) of the men and women farmers were having one to four of the farm implements. Majority of the farmers had to face the problem of market availability which was around 3 to 5 km distance away from their villages. Majority (60.00 percent and 40.83 per cent) of the women and men farmers had medium level of contact with the extension person. Majority (56.67 per cent and 51.67 per cent) of the men and women farmers had medium participation in extension activities. Majority of the respondents (54.17 per cent and 44.17 per cent) had medium extent of use of mass media. Access to weather forecast was available only to 49.17 per cent and 22.50 per cent of the men and women farmers respectively. Majority of the men and women farmers had medium level of risk orientation, innovativeness and decision making pattern. While the men farmers were more aware of the indicator that climate is getting warmer day by day, the women farmers were more aware of the increase in pollution level of the environment. Majority of the men respondents perceived that in monsoon season onset of monsoon has been delayed, end of monsoon has been early, frequency of dry spell has increased, uneven distribution of rainfall has increased and uncertainty of rainfall has increased. In winter season, onset of winter season has been delayed; duration of winter season has decreased and no of days of severe cold has decreased. In summer season minimum and maximum temperature has increased, onset of summer season was early and end of summer season was delayed, month with intense hot days was increased and rainfall in summer season was also increased. For the same season wise climate change indicators, the women farmers perceived differently as for them, the frequency of dry spell was unchanged; duration of monsoon season was decreased. In winter season intensity of cold wave was increased, no of days of severe cold was increased and duration of winter season was decreased. In summer season end of summer season was delayed, number of intense hot days has increased and intensity of heat wave has increased. To avoid the climate change extremities, the farmers adopted certain adaptation strategies which was further divided into short term and long term adaptation strategies. Early sowing, crop insurance, mixed cropping, increased seed rate, flood tolerant variety, strengthening of bunds, drought tolerant variety, early maturing variety, low water requirement crops, deep rooted crops, increased irrigation, application of potash and urea, thinning, use of farm implements and pest resistant variety are some of the short duration strategies. Crop diversification, tubewell, ponds, renovation of ponds and wells, polyhouse, checkdam, sprinkler irrigation, INM in crops, backyard poultry and duck farming are some of the long term strategies adopted mainly by the men farmers. The men and women farmers were exposed to same type of climate extremities but it was the coping mechanism which makes the difference in vulnerabilities faced by both the social groups. To overcome these problems, climate change and related issues should be seen from a gender lens and the policy implications must be more gender just.ThesisItem Open Access Techno-economic Analysis of Lentil Production in Mokama Tal of Bihar State(Department of Extension Education, BAU, Sabour, 2017-08) Kumar, Randhir; Panda, Chandan KumarPulses are important sources of protein, high in fiber content and provide ample quantity of vitamins and minerals. Keeping in view large benefits of pulses for human health, the United Nations had proclaimed 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. Bihar is one of the important states in India for pulse production. Amongst the different pulses, lentil is one of the important pulse crops for Bihar. Demand of lentil in Bihar is also high. So, it becomes imperative to study technology and economic aspects of lentil cultivation/production to match the requirement of lentil in India in general and Bihar in particular. There are some socio-economic issues related researches in pulses cultivation in Bihar, however, there are very limited study specifically for lentil cultivation in aforesaid aspect. Mokama Tal area is famous in India for its pulses cultivation. Thus, keeping all this in mind, this research work was coined with the objectives of i)to study the socio-economic profile of selected lentil growers in Mokama Tal; ii)to study the technological gap in lentil production in study area; iii)to identify the factors responsible for changing trend of lentil cultivation area; iv)to estimate the costs and returns of lentil cultivation; and v) to assess the constraints in lentil cultivation. For the present study 120 respondents were selected randomly from Mokama Tal area. From the study it was noted that maximum number of respondents (60.00%) were middle age group, most of them were male and 45.83% respondents belonged to general category. Most of the famers lived in joint family. It was also noted 70.82 % respondents had more than 10 years of farming experiences and 37.50% of them were big farmers. Major sources of information to the farmers were radio, kisan salahkaar, progressive farmers, and kisan diary. Major knowledge gap was noted in case of fertilizer management, land preparation and weed management. It was also noted that area under lentil cultivation is gradually increasing because of good stand of lentil, better response to DAP fertilizers, good market chain and stealing of standing lentil crop is less as compare to other pulses. The most important perceived abioticconstraints in lentil cultivation were soil hardiness after seed sowing and soil cracking. Short sowing period, on availability of credits in time, lack of knowledge on seed treatment, fluctuating prices of lentil,increase in cost of seed, timely availability of labour were some other important constraints as perceived by respondents.ThesisItem Open Access Factors Affecting Development of Agrientrepreneurship in Bhagalpur District of Bihar(Department of Extension Education, BAU, Sabour, 2016-08) Kumar, Tarun; Singh, S. R.The present study entitled “Factors Affecting Development of Agri-entrepreneurship in Bhagalpur District of Bihar” focused on factors responsible for development of agri-entrepreneurship. For this study Bhagalpur District of Bihar state was purposively selected. The list of agri-entrepreneur from five agri-based enterprise like dairy, mushroom grower, poultry, nursery grower, beekeeping were collected from the different sources like wise Krishi vigyan Kendra, line departments of agriculture, agriculture college, The Bihar State Milk Co-Operative Federation Ltd, Agricultural Technology Management Agency, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. From this list of agri-entrepreneurs, twenty respondents were selected randomly from each agri-based enterprise; hence the sample size was 100. Analysis of demographic profile of respondents indicated that majority of the respondent were middle age group, general category, having intermediate level of education, more than four members in family size, marginal land holding, annual income up to 1 lacs, low level of self confidence, high level of innovativeness, medium level of achievement motivation and low level of institutional support. It was noted that maximum respondents have their own enterprises and most of them received training. It was also noted maximum entrepreneurial had less than five years of entrepreneurial experience. Respondents also have high level of planning orientation, production orientation and medium level of marketing orientation. It was noted that entrepreneurial decision making of the respondents was positively and significantly correlated with the independent variable training received, entrepreneurial experience, plannining orientation, technical and managerial constraints. Annual income of respondents was positively and significantly correlated with the variable entrepreneurial experience and land holding. Achievement motivation is the pivotal of any successful enterprise establishment and continuation and it was interesting to note that loan received is positively and significantly correlated with the dependent variable i.e., achievement motivation of the entrepreneurs. Establishment of large number of Agricultural entrepreneurships is a need of Bihar State. However, the rate of establishment and success is limited due to a large number of constraints. In order make an in-depth enquiry in to this issue, the present study was planned on the problem entitled, “Factors Affecting Development of Agri-entrepreneurship in Bhagalpur District of Bihar”. Major constraints faced by the nursery growers were lack of marketing facility, lack of skilled labour, lack of reasonable price to the product, lack of marketing knowledge and lack of training facility. The mushroom growers reported that lack of marketing facility; storage technique and facility, lack of quality spawn and non availability of skilled persons were the main constraints. The major constraints observed among the beekeepers were lack of marketing availability, obstacle at the time of migration of bee boxes from one place to another, lack of reasonable rate of honey, lack of insurance facility and lack of availability of the bee boxes. The poultry farmers reported that lack of marketing facility was the most important challenge for them. Lack of knowledge, lack of government support, lack of feed as reasonable price, lack of knowledge about important diseases were other constraints faced by the poultry growers. Major obstacles observed in dairy entrepreneurship were lack of knowledge for breed selection, lack of technical information, unreasonably low rate of milk given by the Dairy Cooperatives, high labour cost, no governmental support for financial assistance, no insurance facility provided by any agency, vaccination problem, unavailability of veterinary doctor for caring health of the animals and lack of bank loan. Further, the majority of the respondents had high level of planning orientation (81.0%), high level of production orientation (69.0%), but medium level of marketing orientation (45.0%). This study is possibly the first attempt to peep in to the challenges of agriculture based entrepreneurs of Bihar State and as such the findings of this study are likely to lead to several political, administrative and strategic implications in future.
