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University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru

University of Agricultural Sciences Bangalore, a premier institution of agricultural education and research in the country, began as a small agricultural research farm in 1899 on 30 acres of land donated by Her Excellency Maharani Kempa Nanjammanni Vani Vilasa Sannidhiyavaru, the Regent of Mysore and appointed Dr. Lehmann, German Scientist to initiate research on soil crop response with a Laboratory in the Directorate of Agriculture. Later under the initiative of the Dewan of Mysore Sir M. Vishweshwaraiah, the Mysore Agriculture Residential School was established in 1913 at Hebbal which offered Licentiate in Agriculture and later offered a diploma programme in agriculture during 1920. The School was upgraded to Agriculture Collegein 1946 which offered four year degree programs in Agriculture. The Government of Mysore headed by Sri. S. Nijalingappa, the then Chief Minister, established the University of Agricultural Sciences on the pattern of Land Grant College system of USA and the University of Agricultural Sciences Act No. 22 was passed in Legislative Assembly in 1963. Dr. Zakir Hussain, the Vice President of India inaugurated the University on 21st August 1964.

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19991
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Subject: Extension Education × End date: 1999 × Start date: 1990 × Type: Thesis × Thesis Type: Ph.D ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    A CRITICAL STUDY ON FARM LEADERS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THEIR CHARACTERISTICS AND ROLES FOR AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
    (UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES GKVK BANGALORE, 1999-04-15) NARASIMHAIAH, K.C.; Narayana Reddy, Dr.G.V.
    The technological development in the farm front has broadened the information need of Indian farmers. Effective communication of new technologies to millions of farmers in rural areas is essential for accelerated agricultural development. Opinion leaders in villages influence the decision making behaviour of their fellow farmers in respect of agricultural technologies. Since they act as catalysts of change there is a need to identify and use local opinion leaders in the transfer of technology progrmmes. Hence, the present investigation was planned to study the essential characteristics of these leaders and also their followers, the communication behaviour of leaders, the role expectation and role performance of farm leaders as perceived by leaders themselves and their followers, and finally, the relationship between the characteristics of leaders and their role performance for agricultural development.Ex-post-facto research design was followed. The study was conducted in twelve agriculturally progressive villages of Mandya district of Karnataka State. Sixty farm leaders identified through the key informant method and one hundred and eighty follower farmers selected randomly from these twelve villages, formed the respondents for the study. The characteristics of farm leaders were treated as independent variables, while role performance and communication behaviour of farm leaders formed the dependent variables. All the respondents were personally interviewed using the pre-tested interview schedule and data were collected. Appropriate statistical tests were used to analyse the data and interpret the results. The salient findings of the study are as under: The profile analysis of the respondents indicated that farm leaders were better educated, more innovative, more self reliant, and possessed higher socio-economic status, greater social participation, higher management orientation, greater empathy, higher value orientation, more knowledge about agricultural development programmes, higher contact with extension agency and greater mass media exposure than their followers. The findings on communication behaviour indicated that majority of farm leaders consulted Agricultural Assistant of the Department of Agriculture for their technical needs. Majority of them possessed medium level of overall knowledge and medium overall interpretation behaviour on recommended production technologies of rice, sugarcane and dairy enterprises. They possessed a favourable attitude towards agricultural development programmes and evaluated the new agricultural information either 'through discussion with specialists' or 'through discussion with progressive farmers'. All leaders preserved the new information by memory. Majority of them disseminated the new information to their fellow farmers either 'through interpersonal oral communication' or 'through group discussion'. Majority of them possessed medium overall communication behaviour. The results on role expectation and role performance revealed that both farm leaders and their followers perceived all the twentysix roles as important and there was no significant difference in expectation between farm'leaders and their followers regarding the roles to be performed by farm leaders. Both farm leaders and their followers had similar perception on the role performance of farm leaders in respect of certain roles as stated below. Majority of leaders and their followers perceived that the performance of farm leaders was 'regular' in roles namely; promotes group or community action in the village', 'acts as a quick conveyer of severe problems of farmers to government ormass media' and 'considers the past experiences and future potentialities in accepting or recommending new technologies'. Similarly, majority of them perceived that farm leaders 'occasionally' performed the roles namely, 'focusses general and specific problems of farmers in appropriate fora' and 'represents and speaks for the whole village in official circle about agricultural enterprises'. A considerable number of them perceived that farm leaders 'never' performed the roles namely, 'acts as a teacher to train other farmers in learning new skills' and 'participates in farmers' training programmes'. Majority of leaders also rated their performance as 'regular' in respect of eleven more roles. A considerable number of followers perceived that farm leaders 'never' performed the roles namely, 'always keeps group interest above self advantage', 'acts as a front line demonstrator' and 'collects latest information from different sources about agricultural enterprises'. There was a significant difference in perception between farm leaders and their followers regarding the role performance of farm leaders. The characteristics namely, education, socio-economic status, achievement motivation, self reliance and mass media exposure of farm leaders were positively and significantly associated with their role performance. The combined contribution of all the seventeen characteristics of farm leaders was significant in predicting the role performance of farm leaders. All these variables together were able to explain about 53.2 per cent of variation in the role performance of farm leaders. However, the characteristic 'achievement motivation' was found to be the crucial one.