KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE OF AGRO INPUT DEALERS ABOUT CERTIFICATE COURSE ON PESTICDE MANAGEMENT 3718
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Date
2023-08
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JAU JUNAGADH
Abstract
Agro input dealers, Attitude, Certificate course, Knowledge, Pesticide
management
Agro input dealers are businesspersons with or without a technically qualification
and a service provider. In order to overcome the possible negative effects, it is necessary to
make technical qualification in agriculture as mandatory for issuing retailer ship license to
provide agro advisory services besides selling agricultural inputs. The input dealer has no
specifically for qualification to get license from the government and has inadequate
knowledge about agricultural technology. So, training has to be provided to get better
knowledge and skill to act as an extension service provider by competent institutes
(Sharma, 2017). Pesticide is one of the important agri inputs in agriculture. The pesticides
is mostly marketed by dealers, distributors and retailers. Most of the farmers are dependent
on pesticides dealers/retailers for information related to insecticides and pest management.
However, majority of the pesticides dealers do not have formal education in agriculture. It
is essential therefore to impart technical knowledge on pesticides, pest management and
advisory based on scientific recommendations.
To recognizing this strong farmer-input dealer network and to address this issue,
the government of India has structured a certificate course on pesticide management with
the help of NIPHM to bring a paradigm shift into Indian agricultural extension system.
With this consideration, the problem entitled “Knowledge and attitude of agro input dealers
about certificate course on pesticide management” was undertaken.
A study was conducted in Junagadh, Rajkot, Porbandar and Amreli district of
Gujarat state. Forty agro input dealers from each district were selected as respondent, who
had completed the certificate course on pesticide management. Thus, a sample of total 160
input dealers was considered for the study.
With respect to the characteristics, half (50.00 per cent) of the respondent belong to
middle age group, about more than half (55.00 per cent) of the respondent had education
up to middle school (9th to 10th standard), nearly half (48.75 per cent) of the respondent
belonged to very high annual income, slightly more than half (51.25 per cent) of the
respondents had medium social participation, slightly more than half (51.87 per cent) of the
respondents had medium experience as a dealer, more than half (54.37 per cent) of the
respondents had medium utilization of source of information, more than half (53.13 per
cent) of the input dealers had medium level of mass media exposure, slightly more than
half (51.25 per cent) of the input dealers had no training received, slightly more than three fifth (61.87 per cent) respondents had medium extension contact, slightly more than half
(51.25 per cent) of the respondents had medium level of economic motivation, majority
(55.62 per cent) of respondents had medium level of management orientation, more than
half (55.62 per cent) of the respondents had medium level of innovativeness, more than
two-third (67.50 per cent) of respondents had medium level of risk orientation, one-third
(35.00 per cent) of the input dealers had high level of achievement motivation, slightly less
than one-third (29.37 per cent) of the input dealers had a high level of scientific orientation.
In case of knowledge level of agro input dealers about certificate course on
pesticide management slightly less than three-fifth (58.13 per cent) of the input dealers
had medium level, followed by 18.11 per cent, 11.87 per cent, 11.11 per cent and 1.87
per cent of the input dealers had high, very high, low and very low level of knowledge.
About one-third (35.00 per cent) of input dealers had favourable attitude towards certificate
course on pesticide management, followed by 25.62 per cent, 20.00 per cent, 16.25 per cent
had strongly favourable, moderately favourable and unfavourable attitude, respectively.
Only few (3.13 per cent) of the input dealers had strongly unfavourale attitude towards
certificate course on pesticide management. About one-third (33.13 per cent) of input
dealers had strongly favourable attitude towards JAU followed by 25.62 per cent, 23.75 per
cent, 15.00 per cent had favourable, moderately favourable and unfavourable attitude
towards JAU, respectively. Only few (2.50 per cent) of the input dealers had strongly
unfavourale attitude towards JAU.
The characteristics like age, education, social participation, experience as dealer,
source of information, mass media exposure, training received, extension contact,
economic motivation, management orientation, innovativeness, achievement motivation,
scientific orientation had significant relationship with knowledge about certificate course
on pesticide management.
The characteristics like age, education, social participation, experience as dealer,
source of information, mass media exposure, training received, extension contact,
economic motivation, innovativeness, achievement motivation, scientific orientation had
significant relationship with attitude towards certificate course on pesticide management.
The characteristics like age, education, social participation, experience as dealer,
source of information, mass media exposure, training received, extension contact,
innovativeness, achievement motivation, scientific orientation had significant relationship
with attitude towards JAU.
The major constraints faced by agro input dealers during certificate course on
pesticide management were: unable to attend classes in the peak season, the duration for
the certificate course on pesticide management is very lengthy, classes in working days
affect our business.
In case of the suggestions from the respondents, the programme curriculum must
contain new techniques and molecules of pesticides, there should be more number of field
visits to improve the skill, after completion of every session or a chapter, group discussion
should be conducted