SWOC ANALYSIS OF TOMATO CULTIVATION IN CHITTOOR DISTRICT OF ANDHRA PRADESH
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Date
2017
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Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University
Abstract
The tomato is a major vegetable crop that has achieved tremendous
popularity over the last century. In India tomato is grown in 767.3 M ha area
with 16385.0 Mt production and 21.4 Mt/ha productivity. Andhra Pradesh is
producing about 36% of tomato in the country and is the leading producer of
tomato involving a production of 1473.5 thousand metric tones from an area of
54.2 thousand hectares with productivity of 27.2 Mt/ha.
SWOC as an acronym stand for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and
Challenge of an organization, a programme and a project. These four attributes
are also called SWOC parameters.In management science, SWOC analysis
plays a paramount role in understanding the management problems. It has an
application for strategic decision in personal lives, organizational environments
and even in politics. Practically, no literature was available on SWOC analysis
concerned with agricultural research and development till the year 1994.
However, a maiden attempt has been made by Paroda (1995) on its application
in agricultural research and development while formulating the perspective
plan for the entire Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) setup. The
tool was extensively used by Venkateswarulu and Jagadeesh (1996) in various
projects of national Agricultural Research System like National Agricultural
Research Project (NARP).
The SWOC analysis facilitates to get a comprehensive understanding of
any selected subject. Even though the scenario of tomato cultivation is quite
encouraging, the farmers are encountering frequent failures both in terms of
production and marketing. Hence, there is every need to thoroughl
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the tomato production in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh state. Hence the
present study entitled as “SWOC analysis of tomato cultivation in Chittoor
district of Andhra Pradesh” was undertaken.
Ex-post-facto research design was followed in the present investigation.
The Chittoor district was purposively selected as tomato is extensively grown
in the district. The three mandals Viz., Kurabalakota, Molakalacheruvu and
Gurram konda of chittoor district were purposively selected for the study since
it is having highest area under tomato cultivation. Four villages from each
mandal were selected by following simple random sampling procedure, thus
making a total of twelve villages for the study. From each of the twelve
selected villages, 10 respondents were selected by following simple random
sampling procedure, thus making a total of 120 respondents. A pre tested
interview schedule with measurement devices of all the variables was used for
the collection of raw data. The data were collected by personal interview
method through a structured interview schedule and analyzed by employing
suitable statistical methods.
The analysis of profile characteristics of the farmers indicates that
majority of the farmers engaged in tomato cultivation are middle aged, with
primary school education, small farmers with medium farming experience,
annual income, extension contact, mass media exposure, scientific orientation,
risk orientation, management orientation, innovativeness and achievement
motivation.
Majority of the farmers had medium level of knowledge with regard to
recommended package of practices of tomato cultivation.
Majority of the farmers had medium extent of adoption of recommended
package of practices of tomato cultivation.
Correlation analysis revealed that there was a positive and significant
relationship between education, farm size, annual income, extension contact,
mass media exposure, scientific orientation, risk orientation, management
orientation, innovativeness and achievement motivation with the level of
knowledge of tomato growers. However marketing facilities and credit
orientation had non significant relationship with the knowledge level of tomato
farmers. All the selected 14 independent variables put together explained about
66.50 per cent variation in the knowledge level of tomato growers.
Correlation analysis revealed that there was a positive and significant
relationship between education, farm size, extension contact, mass media
exposure, scientific orientation, risk orientation, management orientation,
innovativeness and achievement motivation with the extent of adoption of the
recommended cultivation practices by tomato growers. However marketing
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facilities and annual income had non-significant relationship with the extent of
adoption of tomato farmers. All the selected 14 independent variables put
together explained about 69.30 per cent variation in the extent of adoption of
the recommended cultivation practices by tomato growers.
The first ten strengths as perceived by the tomato growers were higher
net income; requires less number of irrigations; significant yield increase;
staking provides support to the growing plant; better price in the market;
availability of HYV and disease resistant varieties; easy accessibility to market;
demand during off season; cost of cultivation is low; high demand for the value
added tomato products in the market .
The first ten weaknesses as perceived by the tomato farmers were price
instability; whole salers and retailers role in price fixation; higher hiring
charges of the transport vehicles; non-availability of labour; high cost of plant
protection chemicals; less bargaining power of farmers; lack of planning about
tomato production; lack of direct farmer access to retailers and super markets;
lack of market information resources; micro nutrient deficiencies.
The first ten opportunities as perceived by the tomato farmers were
creation of facilities for strengthing of public and private partnership in
agriculture; provision of storage facilities; opportunities to set up processing
industries; build the capacities of the farmers on post harvest techniques i.e,
grading, sorting, packaging etc; developing organized tomato marketing
systems in the main production centres; provision of government support for
market integration and agro-enterprise development; raise in export prices to
achieve higher margins in current and future export markets by enhancing
quality; favourable climate; requires no skilled labour; contact farming
initiatives which needs to be encouraged through supportive policies
The first ten challenges as perceived by the tomato farmers were non
availability of seed in time; weak management information system in tomato
production; labour migration to nearby cities/towns; farmers do not have their
own transport to deliver the product to the market; high cost of chemical
fertilizers; frequent price slashes due to changes in export policies or
unregulated domestic markets; lack of co-ordination between ministry of
agriculture and other departments; lack of extension and advisory services in
tomato marketing; cash payments not received in time; malpractices of
merchants in the mandies such as deduction of unauthorized market charges,
unfair weighment of the produce
A suitable strategy has been developed keeping in view of the results
obtained in the study and discussions held with the stakeholders of the study.
Description
D5482
Keywords
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