Impact of Extension Services on Capacity Building of Farm Women Engaged in Vegetable Cultivation in Punjab
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Date
2020
Authors
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
155
Abstract
Capacity building is perceived as the tool of gathering technical knowhow and practical training in the area of vegetable production, processing of the same and then most importantly marketing. It is therefore important to reach women in agriculture while planning, implementing, agricultural extension services. The present study attempts to analyze the impact of extension services on capacity building of farm women engaged in vegetable cultivation in Punjab. For this study, multi-stage purposive-cum-simple random sampling design was applied. Six districts where in vegetable cultivation is extensive were selected purposively namely Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala and Sangrur. There were two types of respondents i.e. farm women and extension personnel. A sample of 240 farm women were contacted for data collection on basis of snow ball sampling and eighty extension personnel were selected on the basis of their availability. A self-structured interview schedule was prepared to collect data from farm women and extension personnel. A huge gap was found between needs of farm women and extension services (training, demonstrations and field visits) provided to them in various practices of vegetable cultivation. Findings further revealed that the gap was higher in case of field visits and demonstrations. Results on capacity building revealed that knowledge of farm women moderately increased in vegetable cultivation and skills were also somewhat increased in various practices of vegetable cultivation. Increase in ownership to production resources by farm women and freedom to spend money was found as an impact of extension services. Lack of interest, awareness in farm women and coverage of too many target groups were main constraints faced by extension personnel in reaching farm women.