MARKETING BEHAVIOUR OF WOMEN AGRIPRENEURS IN KADAPA DISTRICT OF ANDHRA PRADESH
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Date
2019
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Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University, Guntur
Abstract
Today’s knowledge based economy is fertile ground for entrepreneurs in India. It is rightly believed that India has an extraordinary talent pool with virtually limitless potential to become entrepreneurs. Recent interest in agricultural development coupled with the problems of poverty and unemployment and opening of markets has brought the concept of rural agri entrepreneurship to the fore. The women entrepreneurs are considered to be the most important economic agents for the economic augmentation of any country. It is well known fact that women play key role in conservation of basic life support systems. Hence entrepreneurship development is a possible approach to empower women. The government of India had implemented a number of programmes for empowerment of the women so as to hasten the entrepreneurship development among rural women and help them to enhance their personal capabilities and increase decision making status in the family and society as a whole and also this programmes have been focused on diversification of agriculture and strengthening of its value addition & its linkage with wider economy. Hence this study was undertaken, which was presented in the State Level Technical Programme meeting at the University headquarters, Lam, Guntur in the month of May 2018 and approval has been obtained. The present study was conducted with broad objectives to assess marketing behaviour of women agripreneurs.
Ex-post-facto research design was followed in the present investigation. Kadapa district was purposively selected owing to the large number of women engaged in agri-preneurial activities in the district. The three mandals viz., Chinthakommadinne, Chennur and Badvel in Kadapa district were purposively selected for the study since it is having highest number of women agripreneurs. Two villages from each mandal were selected by following
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simple random sampling procedure, thus making a total of six villages for the study. From each of the six selected villages, 20 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 women indicates that majority of the women involved in agripreneurial activities are middle aged, with high school education with medium entrepreneurial experience, social participation, innovativeness, decision making ability, annual income, economic orientation, credit orientation, extension contact, mass media exposure, risk orientation, management orientation, training received market facilities and market intelligence.
Majority of the women had medium level of involvement in agrpreneurial activities.
Majority of the women agripreneurs had medium extent of marketing behaviour.
Correlation analysis revealed that age, education, social participation had positive and non significant relationship whereas, entrepreneurial experience, decision making ability, risk orientation, innovativeness, management orientation, annual income, economic orientation, credit orientation and extension contact, mass media exposure, training received, market facilities and market intelligence had positive and significant relationship with extent of involvement of women in entrepreneurial activities.
Multiple Linear Regression analysis revealed that economic orientation and market intelligence were positively significant as evident from their significant ‘t’ values. This implied that risk orientation, economic orientation, credit orientation and market intelligence have contributed to most of the variation in the involvement of respondents in agripreneurial activities.
Correlation analysis revealed that education, social participation, entrepreneurial experience, risk orientation, innovativeness, management orientation, decision making ability, annual income, extension contact, mass media exposure, training received, market intelligence had positive and significant relationship where as age, economic orientation, credit orientation and market facilities had positively non significant relationship with marketing behaviour of women agripreneurs.
Multiple Linear Regression analysis revealed that entrepreneurial experience, credit orientation and market facilities were found negatively
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significant as evident from their significant t’ values and innovativeness, decision making ability, annual income and extension contact were found positively significant as evident from their significant ‘t’ values. This implied that education, innovativeness, management orientation, decision making ability, annual income and extension contact have contributed to most of the variation in the marketing behaviour of respondents.
The constraints were categorized as socio personal, marketing related constraints, technological constraints, infrastructure constraints and financial constraints. Indifferent attitude of the society was perceived as major socio personal constraint by the respondents followed by difficulty in travelling, lack of recognition and appreciation, fear of social security, conflict due to dual responsibilities, lack of freedom, male dominance, lack of self confidence and lack of support from other family members. Financial constraints faced by women entrepreneurs were lack of own funds and resources, limited working capital, shortage of capital in starting the business, lack of government assistance, inadequate loan, delay in sanctioning the loan, procedural norms in getting loans, lack of education in financial management and improper utilization of funds. Under technological constraints, experienced workers leaving the unit after sufficient exposure was the major constraint as opined by majority followed by non availability of skilled manpower, lack of knowledge of various government schemes, lack of adequate skill to start new venture, not getting the opportunity of entrepreneurship training. It is followed by marketing constraints like high production cost, inadequate publicity, exploitation by middle men, heavy competition with big enterprises, shortage of manpower for selling the products, difficulty to sell the product in market, lack of knowledge of how to market the product, inappropriate price for the products, fluctuation in the prices of the product, fluctuation in the demand of the product, late payment by the customers. Constraints pertaining to infrastructure in rank order as expressed by the respondents were inadequate space& building, shortage of equipments or machines, inadequate communication facility, inadequate water supply and inadequate power supply.
Major suggestions given by the respondents to overcome these problems were organising more skill oriented training programmes to develop entrepreneurial capabilities, providing local market for agro based processed food products, providing subsidies for purchasing the equipment for processing, providing loans at low rate of interest and creating awareness about different trainings and govt. schemes.
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D5822
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