A study on communication networks and marketing behaviour of vegetable growers in kumaon region of Uttarakhand
| dc.contributor.advisor | Ansari, M.A. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Shah, Priyanka | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2021-07-28T09:23:37Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2021-07-28T09:23:37Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2021-02 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Vegetable cultivation in the state of Uttarakhand has emerged as financially rewarding practice and could replace subsistence farming in the rain-fed hill agriculture. The state government has also undertaken many special initiatives for promoting vegetable cultivation and up scaling the marketing infrastructure & strategy in the state by designing various policies and programmes. Despite many government policies and initiatives, the problem of marketing the vegetables remain a key issue. Besides, the vegetable growers are not as well served by the agriculture extension system as the farmers growing fruit crops and food grains; and due to this, productivity and production efficiency remains quite low. Public and private extension agents can play the role of key communicators in the promotion of vegetable cultivation. The information flow can be improved, and this can help in the marketing process. There is need to assist farmers to develop their understanding of relationship between the market information and communication source. The flow of information in communication networks is a major concern in agricultural extension services as they help farmers in timely decision making, better farming and improved livelihood. Also, there is a need to analyze the communication network for effective use of information sources in marketing of vegetable production. If the right networks are identified for information exchange about improved agriculture and marketing practices within the community, it may help in promoting agricultural innovations through extension services and other programmes. Keeping this in view, the study entitled “Communication Networks and Marketing Behaviour of Vegetable Growers in Kumaon Region of Uttarakhand” was undertaken. The study was conducted in Kumaon region of Uttarakhand. Out of thirteen districts of Uttarakhand, two districts from the Kumaon region i.e. Nainital and Udhamsingh Nagar were selected purposely based on highest vegetable production as the locale for the study. Further, two blocks i.e. Dhari and Haldwani from Nainital district and Gadarpur and Rudrapur from Udhamsingh Nagar district were selected through simple random sampling without replacement. Later, two villages from each block i.e. Sharana and Khuni Gaon from Dhari, Gualapar and Khera from Haldwani, Barirai and Girdharnagar from Gadarpur and lastly, Fauji Matkota and Narayanpur from Rudrapur block were selected through simple random sampling without replacement. Thus, eight villages were selected and 25 respondents from each village (200 total respondents) were selected through snowball sampling. The data was collected through a pre-tested structured interview schedule and descriptive and analytical research design was used. The data, thus collected, was coded, tabulated, analyzed and interpreted with the help of Excel, SPSS and UCINET software programmes. From the findings, it can be concluded that majority of the vegetable growers belonged to middle age (34 to 58 years), were male, having education up to high school, had nuclear family with family size between 5 to 8 members. Almost all the vegetable growers were small and marginal farmers having land less than one hectare with secondary occupation as animal husbandry and agricultural labourers. It was also found that majority of the respondent had annual income between Rs 36985- Rs 258310. As regarding farming experience, majority of respondents had medium level (12-35 years) of experience. A large majority of respondents had no training exposure regarding marketing of vegetables and majority of them were neither connected to any organization or enterprise related to marketing. An equal number of vegetable growers belonged to middle and low socio-economic status. With respect to psychological variables majority of the vegetable growers had medium level of economic motivation, innovativeness, risk preference and market orientation. Almost half of the respondents had medium level of mass-media exposure and majority of them belonged to medium level of information sharing behaviour and information seeking behaviour. The descriptive analysis of communication networks of all the eight villages regarding marketing and production about network centrality was done. It was found that Naraynpur village had highest density, with highest average degree. Also, Gualapar village had the highest connectedness, with lowest component ratio and fragmentation. Further, Sharana village had highest in-degree and out-degree. Khuni Gaon had highest in-closeness as well as out-closeness whereas Girdharnagar village had highest betweenness. Majority of the vegetable growers displayed medium level of marketing behaviour. It can therefore be concluded that the marketing behaviour of vegetable growers varies from person to person and is influenced by many factors such as area under vegetable cultivation, annual income, training, SES, mass media exposure, information seeking behaviour and information sharing behaviour. Major constraints regarding marketing as reported by vegetable growers were long chain of intermediaries, inadequate transport facility, high transportation charges, inadequate storage facility and lack of remunerative prices whereas in respect to production, major constraints were high cost of seed/fertilizers, lack of information, lack of knowledge about grading and standardization and non availability of labour. The study outcomes are important for delineating individuals in the communication networks providing effective backward-forward linkages and facilitate marketing information flow. This will help in the promotion of vegetable cultivation in the state. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810171004 | |
| dc.keywords | information communication, networking, marketing, vegetables, farmers, Uttarakhand | en_US |
| dc.language.iso | English | en_US |
| dc.pages | 235 | en_US |
| dc.publisher | G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand) | en_US |
| dc.research.problem | Uttarakhand | en_US |
| dc.sub | Agricultural Extension Education | en_US |
| dc.theme | Farmers | en_US |
| dc.these.type | Ph.D | en_US |
| dc.title | A study on communication networks and marketing behaviour of vegetable growers in kumaon region of Uttarakhand | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |