Feasibility of fruit and vegetable processing as an enterprise for women
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Date
2011
Authors
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Publisher
CCSHAU
Abstract
For assessing the feasibility of food and vegetable processing unit as an enterprise for rural
women, two blocks i.e. Adampur and Barwala of Hisar district were selected randomly. Out of the
selected blocks two villages namely Siswal and Dhani Premnagar were selected randomly. A sample of
100 respondents i.e. 50 from each village was drawn and 25 women respondents from each selected
village were selected randomly who were interested to undertake training on food processing. Various
socio-personal, economic, psychological and communication variables constituted the independent
variables and awareness, knowledge, impact assessment, attitude, symbolic adoption, skill and
acceptability constituted the dependent variables for the study. Data were collected with the help of
pre-tested structured interview schedule. The inferences were drawn on the basis of frequency,
percentages, paired ‘t’ test mean score and correlation.
The study revealed that most of the respondents were of younger age group, illiterate, married
had medium family education status having nuclear families of medium size had farming as their main
occupation belong to middle caste, negligible social participation and having pucca type of houses had
low annual income, marginal land holding having small herd size, low material possession and had
high level of transportation. Majority of the respondents had medium change proneness, medium and
high risk orientation and high economic motivation level. Most of the respondents took joint decision
in family and entrepreneurial decision followed by the decision taken by husband. Most of the
respondents were having low mass media exposure and high localite source of information and low
cosmopolite sources of information were utilized. The general awareness of most of the respondents
regarding food processing was of moderate level, however, awareness was high at post-exposure level.
Maximum number of the respondents of pooled sample found the food processing technology simple,
relatively advantageous trialable, observable, and culturally compatible. Sufficient gain in knowledge
regarding food processing was recorded for sub-components of need for preservation, methods of
preservation, important points to be kept in mind while preserving and methods of making pickles,
preserve, sauce, potato chips and squashes. The respondents succeeded in change their attitude at post
exposure in both of the village and succeeded in acquiring more skills with respect to all the aspects
food processing. The respondents had moderately high level of symbolic adoption and willing to adopt
food processing as an enterprise with somewhat difficulty. The Overall acceptability of food processing
was of moderately high level. Personal and physical constraints were perceived as the main constraints
in adoption of food processing. Knowledge was significantly correlated with land holding, income and
risk orientation while attitude was found significantly and positively correlated with age, education,
land holding and risk orientation. It was found that the obtained benefit-cost ratio in all the three cases
mengo, green chilli and lemon is greater than one, hence it shows that the investment in the selected
units is considered to be economically viable.
Description
Keywords
Fruit, Vegetable processing, Enterprise, Symbolic adoption, Communication, Attitude