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Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa
In the imperial Gazetteer of India 1878, Pusa was recorded as a government estate of about 1350 acres in Darbhanba. It was acquired by East India Company for running a stud farm to supply better breed of horses mainly for the army. Frequent incidence of glanders disease (swelling of glands), mostly affecting the valuable imported bloodstock made the civil veterinary department to shift the entire stock out of Pusa. A British tobacco concern Beg Sutherland & co. got the estate on lease but it also left in 1897 abandoning the government estate of Pusa.
Lord Mayo, The Viceroy and Governor General, had been repeatedly trying to get through his proposal for setting up a directorate general of Agriculture that would take care of the soil and its productivity, formulate newer techniques of cultivation, improve the quality of seeds and livestock and also arrange for imparting agricultural education. The government of India had invited a British expert. Dr. J. A. Voelcker who had submitted as report on the development of Indian agriculture. As a follow-up action, three experts in different fields were appointed for the first time during 1885 to 1895 namely, agricultural chemist (Dr. J. W. Leafer), cryptogamic botanist (Dr. R. A. Butler) and entomologist (Dr. H. Maxwell Lefroy) with headquarters at Dehradun (U.P.) in the forest Research Institute complex.
Surprisingly, until now Pusa, which was destined to become the centre of agricultural revolution in the country, was lying as before an abandoned government estate. In 1898. Lord Curzon took over as the viceroy. A widely traveled person and an administrator, he salvaged out the earlier proposal and got London’s approval for the appointment of the inspector General of Agriculture to which the first incumbent Mr. J. Mollison (Dy. Director of Agriculture, Bombay) joined in 1901 with headquarters at Nagpur
The then government of Bengal had mooted in 1902 a proposal to the centre for setting up a model cattle farm for improving the dilapidated condition of the livestock at Pusa estate where plenty of land, water and feed would be available, and with Mr. Mollison’s support this was accepted in principle. Around Pusa, there were many British planters and also an indigo research centre Dalsing Sarai (near Pusa). Mr. Mollison’s visits to this mini British kingdom and his strong recommendations. In favour of Pusa as the most ideal place for the Bengal government project obviously caught the attention for the viceroy.
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ThesisItem Open Access Participation of rural women in tea cultivation: A study of Kangra District (Himachal Pradesh)(RPCAU, Pusa, 2023) SHARMA, DAMINI; Prakash, SatyaIndia makes one of finest tea around the world. Globally, second largest producer of tea is India with the total of 6.37 lakh ha of tea cultivated area (tea board). India is also one of top consumers of tea. 80% of teas grown in India are consumed by domestic population. . Tea is grown in states like Assam, West Bengal, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Nagaland and Tripura. Some districts of Himachal Pradesh also contribute to the traditional tea growing states. Women labours and their involvement in the tea plantation is gaining attention as majority of sector is dominated by women itself. Planting, plucking, picking, grading, skiffing, storage and packing are the activities perform by rural women in tea farms. Majority of work in tea farms are done by women because it patience and efficiency which are done more precisely by women. This is one of main reasons of dominance of female work forces in Kangra tea farms. One of the strengths of Kangra tea is the taste and its organic, orthodox processing and high quality tea. Working as tea labourers are the best alternative for rural women to increase the living standards of women. By keeping in view the above facts, my attempt was to study is there any increase in the empowerment of rural women after engaging so much in the farms. Himachal Pradesh's Kangra district, which is home to the majority of the state's tea farms, served as the focus of a study on the effects of the tea farming sector on the socio economic position of rural women. An interview schedule was used to gather the pertinent data, which was then tabulated and analysed using the appropriate analytical techniques. 120 women tea labourer respondents from four major tea estates in Palampur block and Baijnath block of Kangra district were chosen at random for the study. It is concluded from the research that most of the respondent were from the middle age group (36-50 years and maximum of the respondents were educated till the secondary level, none of the respondents fell into the category who had received college education. We infer that maximum respondents had joint families. The number of children is an important factor affecting women labour participation. Most of women have two children. The findings indicate that most of women fell in the category of respondents who had medium level of social participation. Most of women had medium level of farming experience i.e. 4-8 years. On analyzing the contents we can deduce that bulk of the respondents had medium scientific orientation. We infer that maximum respondents were married. Large portion of the respondents had adopted only tea farming as their primary occupation leaving the rest of 5% who practiced tea farming and some other activities to obtain additional income. All the respondents (100%) in the locale of the study belonged to the category of farmers with marginal land holdings. It was seen that none of them had land more than 2.5 acres. We can deduce that bulk of the respondents had medium level of livestock holding mostly cow. It can be seen that maximal percentage of women respondents had medium income (50272 to 809580). Majority of the respondents, women displayed medium level towards mass media exposure. Maximum of the responding participants had medium extension contact. Majority of respondent fit into the category of medium level of risk orientation. Majority of respondent fit into the category of medium level of economic motivation. Majority of respondent fit into the category of medium level of achievement motivation. From the research finding , we can say that maximum women participation is seen in intercultural activities followed by harvest and post harvest activities. Cultivation activities has moderate level of participation and the lowest in the list are management activities and decision making activities with lowest participation. From the research findings overall participation majority of respondent had medium level of overall participation. In conclusion, we can say that according to findings maximum women empowerment is seen in decision making empowerment followed by social empowerment. Economic empowerment got medium level of empowerment and the lowest in the list are psychological empowerment and political empowerment with lowest empowerment amongst women. According to the overall empowerment of rural women, majority of respondent fit into the category of medium level of overall empowerment.ThesisItem Open Access A STUDY ON JOB INVOLVEMENT, JOB PERFORMANCE AND JOB SATISFACTION AMONG THE FACULTY MEMBERS OF RPCAU, PUSA, BIHAR(Dr.RPCAU, Pusa, 2022) SAIKIA, DIPANKAR; Singh, Ashok K.The study was carried out in Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University (RPCAU), Pusa, Bihar during the year 2020-21 to analyze the job involvement, job performance and job satisfaction among the faculty members. The data pertaining to the objectives of the study were collected from a sample size of 160 faculty members from all the colleges under the jurisdiction of RPCAU, Pusa comprising of working professors, associate professors and assistant professors with the help of a pretested schedule along with personal interview method. The scale developed by Lodahl & Kejner (1965) as modified by Kalita (1991) was used to measure the level of job involvement of faculty members while self-rating scale developed by Ahire (2005) was used to measure classroom teaching performance of university teachers with suitable modification with respect to the job performance of faculty members. Job satisfaction scale developed by Dixit (1993) was further administered to measure the job satisfaction of faculty members. The variables occupational stress and mental health was measured with the help of suitable indices developed by Srivastava and Singh (1984) and Jagdish and Srivastava (1988) respectively. The other selected independent variables were also measured with the help of suitable scale and schedule. The statistical techniques and tests used for analysis were frequency, distribution, per centage, mean, standard deviation, correlation and stepwise regression analysis. The results indicate that majority (37.50%) of faculty members had high level of job involvement followed by low (32.50%) and medium (30.00%) level of job involvement respectively. With respect to the job performance, it was found that majority (38.12%) faculty members had medium level of job performance followed by high (36.88%) and low (25.00%) level respectively. In case of job satisfaction, the findings revealed that majority (40.00%) of the respondents were moderately satisfied with their job while 35.63 per cent of them were highly satisfied and rest 24.37 per cent of total respondents were less satisfied with their jobs. With regard to occupational stress and mental health, the findings suggested that majority (39.38%) of faculty members were found to possess medium level of occupational stress having their good mental health. The computed values of correlation co-efficient (r) between selected dependent variables and the socio-economic, psychological and professional attributes of faculty members revealed that age, education, job experience, level of aspiration, achievement motivation, number of publications, participation in seminar/conferences, number of students guided, perception of faculty members towards the job, scientific orientation, attitude towards organization, organizational climate, perceived opportunity for professional growth and mental health had positive and significant relationship while workload and occupational stress had negative and significant relationship. Through stepwise regression analysis on job involvement reveals the same findings. Stepwise regression analysis on job performance reveals that variables, organizational climate, scientific orientation, occupational stress, level of aspirations, perception of faculty members towards the job, attitude towards organization, number of publications has been retained in the last step which together explains 78.70 per cent of variance while stepwise regression analysis on job satisfaction reveals that variables, organizational climate, perceived workload, occupational stress, level of aspiration, number of publications and perception of faculty members towards the job has been retained in the last step which together explains 73.30 per cent of variance. During the study, heavy workloads, lack of teacher‟s trainings programme, less cooperation among teachers, lack of opportunity for exposure visit, faculties were being involved in non-academic works were the major constraints as expressed by the selected faculty members. Therefore, it was suggested that the concerned authorities should ensure minimization of workloads with proper division of works, co-operation, and inclusion of teacher‟s trainings programme for better teaching performance.ThesisItem Open Access ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT AMONG THE RURAL WOMEN OF SOUTH DISTRICT OF TRIPURA(Dr.RPCAU, Pusa, 2021) Reang, Sulochana; Singh, Ashok K.Entrepreneurship shows the path to women’s independence, which meets the demand and desire for higher living condition. SHG have paved the door for rural women to achieve economic independence. Its formation have encouraged many rural women who are interested and keen for their financial security to start the business venture, thereby leads to improvement of women welfare. The research was conducted in the South Tripura district of North-eastern state of Tripura. The district was selected purposively due to the fact that it has the highest number of Self Help Group in the state. 2 blocks namely Jolaibari and Satchand were selected purposively based on the SHG membership. Further, two villages were chosen purposively from each block based on the highest number of Self Help Group representatives, thus constituting a total of 4 villages. From each selected village, respondents who were expressed their desire to take up self-employment as a business venture were selected. 30 members were selected from each village as respondents, thus constituting a total of 120 respondents. Majority of the selected women respondents were found to be young (64.16%), married (97.50%), studied up to secondary school (34.16%), SC category (34.16%), medium-sized family (43.33%) with nuclear family type (63.33%). Crop farming was found to be the primary occupation of most of the women and business was their subsidiary occupation. Nearly half (47.50%) of the respondents had small land holdings and more than half of the women (50.83%) respondents fall into the category of medium annual income. Maximum number (87.50%) of the rural women had received financial assistance from NGOs/SHGs and had high mass media participation (51.00%), medium participation in extension activities (70.00%), medium extension contact (71.66%), along with medium cosmopoliteness (48.33%). Most of the rural women fall into the medium level of aspiration (64.16%) and medium economic motivation (63.33%). In the study area, the majority of the rural women (60.83%) had medium entrepreneurial behaviour. The analysis of correlation coefficient between components of entrepreneurial behaviour with their overall entrepreneurial behaviour showed that all the components i.e. innovativeness, decision making ability, risk orientation, scientific orientation , competitiveness, leadership ability, need for independence, achievement motivation, managerial ability, and self-confidence, had a positive and strong association with overall entrepreneurial behaviour of the respondents which found significance at 1% level. Some of the major constraints prevailing were ‘High labor cost’ (60.82) in production and labor constraints, ‘Non-availability of efficient managers’ (74.67) in technical and managerial constraints, ‘Entire loan is not given at a time’ (68.44) in financial constraints, ‘Long distance of the market’ (43.25) is marketing constraints, ‘Lack of leisure time’ (75.60) in personal/general constraints and ‘High taxation’ (73.47) in policy constraint.ThesisItem Open Access STUDY OF LIVELIHOOD SECURITY AND WELL-BEING AMONG FARMERS OF TELANGANA DURING COVID-19(DRPCAU, PUSA, 2021) POOJA, GOTTIMUKKULA SREE; SINGH, ASHOK K.The whole world is currently dealing wit1h a global outbreak of COVID-19. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. So, the present study was conducted during the period of emerging pandemic among the farming community of Telangana state during COVID-19. Two districts viz. Rangareddy and Suryapet were purposively selected which are reported with highest positive cases. From each selected block 2 villages were selected randomly. From each village 20 respondents were selected randomly comprising total 160 respondents from the study area. In this way present study was conducted on 160 respondents in 8 villages. “Livelihood Security” of farmers was measured using an Index developed by Lal (2017) following Alfares & Duffuaa (2009) and Sullivan et al.(2006),FAO methodology, based on 7 sub-indicators of Livelihood Security i.e. food security, economic security, health security, educational security, social security, institutional security and infrastructural security. To assess well-being among farmers, scale has been adopted from MH20 scale which was explored and extracted the 7 latent constructs by using exploratory factor analysis and supplemented with WHO-5 index which had been validated “STUDY OF LIVELIHOOD SECURITY AND WELL-BEING AMONG FARMERS OF TELANGANA DURING COVID-19” with 6 steps of methodological pathway. Most of the respondents were found to be middle-aged, having secondary level of education, family size (consisting of 4 or less 4 members) and with medium level of social participation (by being associated with at least two organizations). Agriculture was the main occupation of the respondents and live-stock rearing was subsidiary occupation. The majority of respondents were the large land-holders, having medium annual income. The largest parts of the respondents were having medium exposure to mass-media and medium level of extension contact. The results revealed that majority of respondents were having medium level of aspiration and high level of risk orientation, with almost equal percent of self-confidence. Extent of overall Livelihood security in the study area was found to be 62.80 percent with seven sub-indicators contributing food security (80.80%), economic security (40.40%), health security (62.50%), educational security (50.60%), social security (71.00%), institutional security (61.40%) and infrastructural security (72.90%). The regression analysis of livelihood security index with 14 independent variables concludes that only 7 factors were significant. R2 value being 0.618 indicates that 14 factors were adduced for 61.80% of variance in the livelihood security index with the highest Significant “t value” of 3.909 for educational years of the respondent. By the dint of well-being scale, 30.63 percent of respondents were found to have low well-being, 35.62 percent were with moderate well-being and 33.75 percent of respondents were reported with Good-well-being. Six variables viz. Occupation, Livestock-holding, Annual Family Income, Mass media Exposure, Risk orientation and Social Participation. Livestock-holding and Mass-media exposure were negatively significant at 10% level defining that one percent increase in each decreases the well-being by 15% with odds ratio being 0.85. Females were having 3 times more well-being than males, promulgated by the odds ratio 4.08, indicating that women are mentally stronger during amid epidemic condition. “Increase in labour scarcity and labour costs” was reportedly faced consequence, by most of the respondents (65%) which was followed by “Due to problem in transportation and marketing, the produce (non-paddy grains, cotton, milk, vegetables etc.,) remained unsold”(57.50%). From the overall analysis, we found that only small percentages of farmers were having low livelihood security. Well-being scale result indicated that almost same proportions of respondents were distributed over three strata. Hence programme related increasing well-being should be implemented among farming especially to cope with crisis such as pandemics.ThesisItem Open Access EVALUATION OF EMPOWERMENT OF FARMERS THROUGH DIGITAL INDIA IN BHADRADRI DISTRICT OF TELANGANA(DRPCAU, PUSA, 2021) SANGEETH, DASIKONDA; Lal, S.P.‘Digital India Programme’ was launched on 1st July 2015 with the twin vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. This program had the potential to remove the digital gap between rural and urban India. To know the extent of farmers' digital empowerment, the present study entitled “Evaluation of empowerment of farmers through Digital India in Bhadradri district of Telangana” was framed. The study was conducted in Bhadradri district and it was selected purposively based on average population covered under Common Service Centres and Bharat net scheme in which the selected district was first among all the districts comprising of both the schemes and further 2 blocks and six villages were selected randomly. A total of 120 respondents were randomly selected for the final study. 18 farmers each from 2 villages of Dummugudem block of Bhadradri district were selected separately to rank the digital empowerment index indicators. The data were collected by observation, personal interview method, and with the help of a structured interview schedule prepared for the study. Statistical analyses were performed using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, regression, Alfares, and Duffuaa (2009) method and Sullivan et al. (2006) method and a multinomial logistic model were applied to get meaningful results. The study revealed that the majority of respondents belonged to the middle age group. Most of the respondents are small farmers with middle-level education and medium-level social participation, extension contact, and mass media exposure. To measure the digital empowerment, a weightage index was developed based on frequencies of ranks given by 36 progressive farmers in which economic indicator had the highest weightage (95.08) followed by technical competence (83.15), psychological (77.89), and legal (68.06). The mean values of four indicators, i.e., Psychological, Legal, Economic, and Technical indicators were 0.78, 0.71, 0.78, and 0.38, respectively. Among the four indicators, economic indicator was given the highest rank, and the technical competence indicator was given the least rank by the farmers. Overall empowerment was calculated in which most of the respondents had a moderate level of empowerment. 'Multinomial logistic model' was used to study the relationship between independent variables and empowerment level. Age was positively significant at 5% level, and social participation was positively significant at 10% level. It also revealed that a one-unit increase in age can increase the odds of moderate empowerment farmers becoming high empowerment by 24.2%. (odds ratio [OR] 1.242, 95% CI) at 5% level of significance and one unit increase in the social participation can increase the odds of moderate empowerment farmers to become high empowerment by 28.4%. (odds ratio [OR] 1.284, 95% CI) at 10% level of significance. Digital illiteracy was the major push factor for the adoption of digital technologies among the respondents and e-governance was ranked highest by the respondents as the major pull factor for the adoption of digital technologies. The research concludes that among the indicators, the economic indicator was given the highest weightage, and policymakers should focus more on the technical competency aspect as it was deficient when compared to other indicators. The study concluded that focus on social participation may increase digital empowerment & more focus should be given on technical indicators as it was alarmingly deficient.ThesisItem Open Access A STUDY OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM FOR AGRICULTURE AMONG DIFFERENT ETHNIC GROUPS IN DHEMAJI DISTRICT OF ASSAM(DRPCAU, PUSA, 2021) Gogoi, Bidyut Pritom; ANSARI, M.N.Developing countries like India are having latest method of communication, but their effective utilization by people who are less exposed is doubtful. In those rural areas indigenous means of communication still play a vital role in social functioning, maintenance and social change.Many research have been performed on modern media in the past, but very little has been done to study indigenous media in depth. Keeping aforesaid facts in mind, the present study was planned with the following objectives; 1. To identify different traditional folk media in selected ethnic groups. 2. To document various indigenous media related to agriculture in the local community. 3. To analyze the extent of use, popularity and suitability of indigenous media for agriculture. 4. To assess the effectiveness of different traditional folk media. 5. To suggest strategies for use of Indigenous media for agriculture development. In this type of study, the researcher must be familiar with the local language, history, values, and attitudes. Therefore, Dhemaji district of Assam was purposively selected, as the researcher was familiar with the area, local language, history, values, and attitudes. Out of the 5 blocks two blocks viz. “Machkhowa” and “Bordoloni” block was selected based on cultural diversities. The two selected blocks comprises 51 and 201 in habitat villages respectively and only two villages were chosen from each of the two blocks resulting in 4 villages total. The selected villages are viz. “Gohain Bilotia”, “Begenegora”, “Borbam Deori ½” and “Borbam Gaon”. A list of farmers was compiled from each village based on farming and usage of folk media. . Every list had 25 respondents including both male and female, resulting in a total sample size of 100 for the study. Since, some traditional folk media are done solely by women so both male and female respondents were chosen for the study. The research was descriptive in nature, so the information was collected using a standardized interview schedule and a camera to capture and evaluate content, style, and form in relation to the study's goals. The quantitative data was analysed by using statistical technique like frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and correlation coefficient. The findings of the study reveals that majority of the respondents were middle age group (36-55), ST categories, engaged in farming, education up to secondary level, small sized land holding, having medium annual income, mixed type house and farming as the sources of income. It was found that the different traditional folk media prevalent among the selected ethnic groups were Folk songs (Bihu, Oi:nitom), Folk dances (Log, Gumrag), Festivals (Bihu, Ali-Aye-Ligang), Folk theatres like Bhaona and different proverbs, idioms and riddles related to agriculture. It was found that majority of the respondents used folk songs, folk dances, proverbs, festivals, fair regularly and it was found popular and effective for agricultural communication. In correlation analysis, it was found that age, education and mass media exposure was found to be positively correlated with use and effectiveness of traditional folk media and highly significant at 5% and 1%. The findings of the present study hold a great potential in the field of communication research as well as for planning and dissemination of need based information among rural families for agricultural development.ThesisItem Open Access STUDY ON EFFECTIVENESS OF ICT BASED AGRO-MET ADVISORY SERVICES IN ADDRESSING INFORMATION NEEDS OF FARMERS IN DARRANG DISTRICT OF ASSAM(DRPCAU, PUSA, 2021) BARUAH, BHANITA; PRAKASH, SATYAWeather plays salient role in agriculture. No aspect of crop growth and development is devoid of weather. From sowing of seed to its growth, development, yield, incidence of pests and diseases, critical stages of water requirements, fertilizer requirement, weather has profound impact on crop. Even the quality of the produce after harvest and in storage depends on weather. Weather aberration may cause physical damage to the crop resulting in economic loss to farmers. The vagaries in weather can‘t be controlled, unlike other inputs and practices in agriculture. Agro-met advisory service holds the capacity to reduce the vulnerability of farmers to extreme weather and climate fluctuations when provided timely to farmers. As climate change is receiving increasing global attention, so does the use of weather related information in the field of agriculture. ICTs (Information and Communication Technology) recently, are considered easy, fast and convenient way to communicate and get prompt answers of respective problems. Incorporation of ICT in agro-met advisory services can help in boosting Indian Agriculture. The present study on effectiveness of agro-met advisory services was conducted in Darrang district of Assam. The district and the state are highly vulnerable to climate change. An ex-post facto research design was used in the study.100 beneficiary farmers of agro-met advisory services of KVK were selected randomly from 2 blocks of Darrang, 25 farmers each from 4 villages. In order to collect data from respondents, a structured interview schedule was prepared. The important statistical measures used to analyze the research data were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, regression and garret ranking. The effectiveness of ICT based agro-met advisory services were measured by timeliness, utility, quality, satisfaction and ease of understanding of the information. Related social, personal and communication variable were taken as independent variable. The study revealed that for the attributes age, annual family income, experience in farming, mass media exposure, extension participation, extension contact, information seeking behavior majority of the respondents were falling under medium level. For rest of the attributes like gender (male dominated), family type (mostly nuclear family), educational status (majority had primary and high school level), social participation (large proportion were member in one organization), land holding (majority were marginal farmer) results were obtained. Among the ICT tools majority of the respondents used mobile phone, television and social media. Majority of the farmers had agro-meteorological information needs regarding precipitation, temperature, timings of various activities and adverse weather alert. It was found that majority of the respondent perceived the timeliness, quality, utility, satisfaction and ease of understanding to be of moderate level. Hence the overall effectiveness of the advisory services was moderate. Regression analysis of the dependent variable with independent variables revealed that three factors, experience in farming, educational qualification and ICT Tools used were found to be positively significant. The R2 value being 0.556 indicated that the predictors of the study embedded 55.6% of variance on the dependent variable i.e. effectiveness of agro-met advisory services and rest 44.4% variance was due to some other factors which were not included in the study. The study indicated that inability to update ICT expertise regularly, lack of updated information and poor network connectivity were the major constraints in the study locale.ThesisItem Open Access TRAINING NEEDS OF SORGHUM PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY: A STUDY OF GROWERS IN KALABURAGI DISTRICT(DRPCAU, PUSA, 2021) KUMAR, ANIL; Paswan, Arun KumarThe study entitled “Training Needs of Sorghum Production Technology: A Study of Growers in Kalaburagi District”. The study was carried out with specific objectives to measure the training needs of sorghum farmers along with the factors associated with training need among the selected farmers. An attempt was also made to find out the constraints in attaining training need. The present study was carried out in Kalaburagi district of Karnataka. There are ten blocks in Kalaburagi district. Out of twelve blocks, two blocks, namely Sedam and Jewargi, were selected purposively. Further, two villages from each block were chosen following the random sampling technique. Sorghum farmers has been randomly selected from each of the four selected villages were selected constituting a sample of total 80 respondents for the study purposes. The interview technique was used for collection of data with the help of structured interview schedule. The collected data were analyzed with the help of frequency distribution, mean, standard deviation, correlation and regression analysis. The study revealed that, majority of respondents (43.75 percent) were belonged to the middle age group, having middle school level of education (35.00 percent), small size of family (46.25 percent), small size of land holding (45.00),medium level of experience in farming (68.75 percent), medium level of annual income (75.00), medium level of innovation proneness (48.75), medium level of economic motivation (61.25) The study further revealed that most of respondents were not member of no organization(46.25) medium level of extension contact (60.00 percent), medium cropping intensity (41.25 percent) and most of the respondents (52.50 percent) had medium level of mass irrigation potential. The findings revealed that majority of the respondents expressed medium training need and had medium knowledge about recommended package of practices of sorghum cultivation. The most of farmers expressed training need in the areas were doses of pesticide and fungicide, control measures of pest and diseases, recommended doses of fertilizers, marketing, seed treatment, doses of weedicide and recommended varieties among the sub areas of sorghum production technology. The findings indicated that, variables education (0.374) and contact with extension agency (0.291) were shows positive correlation, at 1% level of significance and age (0.279), innovation proneness (0.251), farming experience (0.238), economic motivation (0.269), and knowledge level (0.242) was also showing positive correlation, at 1% level of significance with the ‘training need’ of the farmers. The regression analysis showed that, size of land holding, economic motivation, contact with extension agency and cropping intensity were the most important factors contributing, significantly, towards the ‘training need’ of farmers. The R2 value (0.416) indicated that the set of variables explain 41.64 per cent of the total variability towards dependent variable i.e., training need. Regarding opinion of training programme, findings revealed that in case of venue for training, majority of the respondents were preferred ‘farmer’s field’ as the best place for organizing training programme. The most of the respondents were preferred two days duration training programme is the best. With regards to size of training, “up to 25 farmers” were best number for organizing effective training. Majority of the respondents were opined in “demonstration” as the best method for conducting training. In case of time of training, majority of the respondents suggested to have training “before/onset of sorghum cultivation”. Suggestions for future work include similar studies with large sample size, more independent and dependent variables need to be carried out at other places for verification of the findings.ThesisItem Open Access ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT AMONG SUGARCANE GROWERS THROUGH JAGGERY PRODUCTION: A STUDY OF BELAGAVI DISTRICT OF KARNATAKA(DRPCAU, PUSA, 2021) HOSAMANI, AKSHAY NARAYAN; ANSARI, M. N.Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) is important cash crop grown across 120 countries in world. It is providing raw material for several agro based industries for the development of the country after textiles. It commands greater significance due to their remarkable contribution to our nation economy through foreign exchange earnings. Entrepreneurship is necessary for sugarcane industry for socio economic development of rural areas by mobilizing rural resources, generating employment and enhancing income of the farmers. In the rapid growing world, every country tries to achieve high socio economic development for the prosperity of the society and betterment of its people. Rural society is made up of farming people. So, the contribution of farmers in economic activities is very much important for a healthy nation building. For the value addition to sugarcane products, there is need to promote entrepreneurship among farmers and development of small scale agro based industries in the villages. Keeping all these aspects in view, the present study entitled “Entrepreneurship development among sugarcane growers through Jaggery production: A study of Belagavi district of Karnataka” has been undertaken with following specific objectives: 1. To understand the socio-economic, personal and communication attributes of sugarcane growers involved in Jaggery production. 2. To assess the entrepreneurial behaviour of jaggery producers. 3. To find out association between selected independent variables with entrepreneurial behaviour of jaggery producers and 4.To identify the constraints faced by the jaggery producers and to suggest the remedial measures. The study was conducted in the two blocks of Belagavi district of Karnataka state during the year 2020-2021. A total of 90 respondents were randomly selected for the present study. The data were collected by personal interview method and with the help of a structured interview schedule prepared for the study. The study revealed that majority of respondents with socio-economic, personal and communication attributes like age group, family size, farming experience, live-stock holding, annual family income, extension contact, mass media exposure, cosmopoliteness were falling under medium level in study locale. The study also found that majority of the respondents was male category, possess nuclear family and were completed up to secondary school education. Greater significance of respondents was participated in more than one organization and was having medium land holding up to 4-10 ha. The findings also indicated that the majority of jaggery producers had medium level of innovativeness (68.88%), decision making ability (62.22%), risk orientation (67.77%), knowledge on farming experience (50.00%), and information seeking behavior (60.00%), achievement motivation (68.88%), economic motivation (56.66%), leadership ability (65.55%), scientific orientation (58.88%) and management orientation (65.55%). It was also found that majority (71.11%) of jaggery producers had medium level of entrepreneurial behavior. Variables of family size, family type, category, livestock holding had negatively significant and education, occupation, mass media and cosmopoliteness had positively significant association with entrepreneurial behavior of jaggery producers. Non -availability of labours (Rank I), high wages of labours (Rank II), low price (Rank III), exploitation by middle man (Rank IV), lack of technical guidance and high cost of inputs (Rank V) and high interest rate on loan and insufficient repayment time (Rank VI) were the major constraints faced by jaggery producers.
