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International Journal of Chemical Studies 2020; 8(1): 1398-1401
P-ISSN: 2349–8528
E-ISSN: 2321–4902
IJCS 2020; 8(1): 1398-1401
© 2020 IJCS
Received: 25-11-2019
Accepted: 29-12-2019
Darsana S
Department of Agricultural
Extension, UAS, GKVK,
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
SV Suresha
Professor and Coordinator,
Bakery Training Unit, UAS,
Hebbal, Bengaluru, Karnataka,
India
Shanabhoga MB
Department of Agricultural
Extension, UAS, GKVK,
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Corresponding Author:
Darsana S
Department of Agricultural
Extension, UAS, GKVK,
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Relationship between the socio-economic
characteristics of the beneficiary farmers with their
perception towards development programmes in
Kerala State
Darsana S, SV Suresha and Shanabhoga MB
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22271/chemi.2020.v8.i1t.8451
Abstract
The agricultural scenario in Kerala is somewhat unique and distinct from many other states in India in
terms of land utilization pattern and the cropping pattern. Even though, improved educational
opportunities and overseas migration prospects adversely affected the agriculture, the agrarian distress.
Government efforts should not only foster the production and productivity, but also needs to retain a
competitive and enthusiastic community in farming for future generation too. The present research paper
was focused on the assessment of the relationship of profile characteristic with welfare and perception of
beneficiaries on the development programmes. The study was conducted during 2017-18 in the state of
Kerala, India. Palakkad district of Kerala state was purposively identified among them Chittur and
Kuzhalmannam blocks were selected based on the ratio of cultivator population to total population.
Thirty each in seven combinations formed a total of 210 respondents. All the respondents availed the
benefits of one or more development programmes. The variables extension contact, extension
participation, assistance from external agency, risk orientation, economic motivation, scientific
orientation and information sharing behavior of farmers were showing a positive correlation with welfare
index at one per cent level of significance. Three variables viz., farming experience, farming commitment
and orientation towards incentives had positive significant relationship with perception at one per cent
level of probability. The study shows that there is positive influence of communication and psychological
behavior of the farmers towards their welfare. It is suggested that, there is a need of government assistant
to extension agencies to influence the farmer’s communication and psychological behavior for their
welfare and their perception.
Keywords: welfare, perception, developmental programmes
Introduction
The agricultural scenario in Kerala is somewhat unique and distinct from many other states in
India in terms of land utilization pattern and the cropping pattern. Agriculture in state is mostly
performed by small farmers and practices homestead or mixed farming. The state which had
been highly acclaimed for its high social and economic indicators, witnessed a significant
decline in agricultural production in the last few decades. Kerala state planning board
accounted that the share of agriculture and allied sectors in total Gross State Value Added
(GSVA) of the State has declined from 13.70 per cent in 2012-13 to 10.50 per cent in 2016-17
(Anonymous, 2018) [3]. The situation assessment survey of agricultural households conducted
by the National Sample Survey Organisation in rural India showed Kerala as having only
23.70 per cent of agricultural households, which is the least in India, while at the national level
it was 53.80 per cent in the year 2013 (Anonymous, 2014) [2]. Even though, improved
educational opportunities and overseas migration prospects adversely affected the agriculture,
the agrarian distress that originated towards the late-1990s had also a major impact on the
people to shift priorities. The resultant structural transformation had its foremost implication in
the form of dependence of the state for food on the neighbour producing centres.
It’s the call for the state to arrest the situation and must bring agriculture back on agenda.
Government efforts should not only foster the production and productivity, but also needs to
retain a competitive and enthusiastic community in farming for future generation too. Keeping
all these in view, the present research paper was focused on to find out the relationship of
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the profile of the beneficiary farmers (Independent Variables)
on welfare and perception (Dependent Variables)
Scope
The research paper projects the relationship of profile of
farmers towards welfare and perception. This would provide
an opportunity for the policy makers and executors in
identifying the factors that can be manipulated to enhance the
welfare and perception variables of the beneficiary farmers.
Methodology
The present research paper was focused on the assessment of
the relationship of profile characteristic with welfare and
perception of beneficiaries on the development programmes.
The study was conducted during 2017-18 in the state of
Kerala, India. Palakkad district of Kerala state was
purposively identified as the locale, as the district is
agriculturally active in the state and ranks first in the total
cropped area and total food crops area. The simulated
research design with control-randomisation was used as the
research design. It focused on assessment of perception of
beneficiaries towards the development programme.
Sample and sampling procedure
Selection of blocks
Palakkad district comprises thirteen blocks among them
Chittur and Kuzhalmannam blocks were selected based on the
ratio of cultivator population to total population.
Selection of respondents
As most of the farmers in Kerala used to grow rice, coconut
and vegetables in combinations, selection of a large number
of respondents specifically from mono- cropping of the
selected crops would be the challenging factor for the study.
Thus the respondent selection considered farmers with the
single crop, two crops and three crops combinations with rice,
coconut and vegetables. For the present study respondents
under seven combinations were identified viz., rice farming,
coconut farming, vegetable farming, rice-coconut combination,
rice- vegetables combination, coconut-vegetables combination
and rice-coconut-vegetables combinations. Simple random
sampling was used for respondent selection. Thirty each in
seven combinations formed a total of 210 respondents. All the
respondents availed the benefits of one or more development
programmes. Thus the 210 respondents could be renamed as
beneficiaries of development programmes. The beneficiary in
the study was operationally defined as those who availed the
financial and technical benefits of the selected development
programmes for rice, vegetable and coconut farming.
Data processing and analysis
The collected data was entered into the MS-Excel master
sheets. The data was scored, compiled, tabulated and
subjected to appropriate statistical tools to draw meaningful
results and logical conclusion. Non-parametric statistical tool
was used for analysis. Statistical tools included mean,
frequency, percentage, standard deviation, range, Spearman’s
rank correlation and multinomial logistic regression. The
statistical analysis was done with the help of computer
software, specifically MS-Excel Spread Sheet and SPSS
version 20.
Spearman rank correlation
As the data set was categorical in nature to find the
relationship between the variables, the Spearman rank
correlation coefficient (rs), the non-parametric version of the
Pearson correlation coefficient was used. The values range
was between -1 to1.
Results and Discussion
Correlation between profile characteristic of beneficiaries
and their welfare
Results of correlation gave evidence that out of the eighteen
independent variables, thirteen were found to be significantly
correlated with the welfare (Table 1). The variables extension
contact (X6), extension participation (X7), assistance from
external agency (X8), risk orientation (X10), economic
motivation (X14), scientific orientation (X15) and
information sharing behavior (X17) of farmers were showing
a positive correlation with welfare index at one per cent level
of significance.
Farming commitment (X5), mass media participation (X16)
and management orientation (X18) pretended for positive
correlation at the significance level of five per cent.
Variables namely dependency ratio (X3), deferred
gratification (X11) were negatively correlated at five percent
level of significance, and family size (X2) negatively
correlated with welfare at one per cent level of significance.
Table 1: Rank correlation between profile and welfare of the
beneficiaries (n=210)
Sl.
No.
Independent variables
Rank correlation
coefficient (rs)
X1
Age
0.069NS
X2
Family size
-0.173***
X3
Dependency ratio
-0.373**
X4
Farming experience
0.027NS
X5
Farming commitment
0.187**
X6
Extension contact
0.328***
X7
Extension participation
0.149***
X8
Assistance from external agency
0.147***
X9
Orientation towards incentives
0.113NS
X10
Risk orientation
0.160***
X11
Deferred gratification
-0.187**
X12
Political determinism
0.005NS
X13
Innovative proneness
0.111NS
X14
Economic motivation
0.187***
X15
Scientific orientation
0.174***
X16
Mass media participation
0.265**
X17
Information sharing behaviour
0.150***
X18
Management orientation
0.281**
***Significant at 1% level
** Significant at 5% level NS: Non-Significant
Correlation of welfare with age (X1), farming experience
(X4), orientation towards incentives (X9), political
determinism (X12) and innovative proneness (X13) were
found to be non-significant in nature.
Extension contact and extension participation would be
effectively related to social dimensions of welfare. Positive
relation of these variables could improve indicators like social
network and social participation. Assistance from external
agencies in the form of kind and cash would indicate change
in financial and farm dimensions. Risk orientation would
enhance the chances to practices innovative technologies in
farming, which could increase the index scores of indicators
like technology adoption, farm income per acre, household
annual income etc. Profile analysis depicted that mostly
beneficiaries had high to medium level of economic
motivation.
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Further increase in economic motivation would imply better
improvement in the indicators at physical and financial
dimensions. Increase in scientific orientation might impact on
farm dimensions indicators namely farm practices, and
technology adoption and for reducing the scores of farm
expenditure per acre. Mass media participation and
information sharing behavior would interfere with the
indicators as personal growth in human dimensions and
indicators as social participation and social contribution in
social dimensions. Management orientation of farmer was
found to be in same direction of welfare indicators as resource
utilization, and conservation in natural resource dimension
and most of the farm dimension indicators.
Negative correlation coefficient of family size and
dependency ratio depicted the movement of variables in the
opposite direction of welfare. Increase in these variables can
impact the indicators like household expenditure, and food
security to reduce the welfare index. Profile analysis depicted
a medium range of deferred gratification for the beneficiaries.
Even though better deferred gratification enhance the farm
and household management, strict postpone of immediate
satisfaction would influence the welfare of present condition,
thus the variables find to move in opposite direction.
The results are in concordance with the findings of Mishra et
al. (2002) [6], Ukoha et al. (2007) [8], Vinay kumar (2008) [10],
Abdullah et al. (2017) [1] and Rabbi et al. (2017) [7] on the
relation of profile with welfare indicators.
Correlation between profile and perception of
beneficiaries
For the perception of beneficiaries, it was inferred that out of
eighteen, thirteen variables were correlated and had
significant relationship with the dependent variable (Table 2).
Three variables viz., farming experience (X4), farming
commitment (X5) and orientation towards incentives (X9)
had positive significant relationship with perception at one per
cent level ofprobability.
The variables namely, age (X1), extension contact (X6),
extension participation (X7), assistance from external agency
(X8), deferred gratification (X11), economic motivation
(X14), scientific orientation (X15) and information sharing
behavior (X17) showed a positive and significant relationship
with perception at five per cent level of probability.
Variable risk orientation (X10) and management orientation
(X18) had significant negative correlation with perception at
one per cent and five per cent levels of probability
respectively.
Variables namely family size (X2), dependency ratio (X3),
political determinism (X12), innovative proneness (X13) and
mass media participation (X16) exhibited non- significant
relationship with perception.
Long years of farming experience would give farmer more
chances to contact with development agencies and to be
aware on various programmes, their objectives and activities
implemented under the programme. This was evident with the
positive significant relation of farming experience with
perception. Positive significant relation of farming
commitment with perception indicated that, farmers with high
levels of commitment were able to make wide assessment of
existing programmes.
Table 2: Rank correlation between profile and perception of beneficiaries (n=210)
Sl. No.
Independent variables
Rank correlation coefficient (rs)
X1
Age
0.234**
X2
Family size
0.039NS
X3
Dependency ratio
-0.040NS
X4
Farming experience
0.152***
X5
Farming commitment
0.177***
X6
Extension contact
0.227**
X7
Extension participation
0.277**
X8
Assistance from external agency
0.166**
X9
Orientation towards incentives
0.153***
X10
Risk orientation
-0.202***
X11
Deferred gratification
0.214**
X12
Political determinism
0.041NS
X13
Innovative proneness
0.078NS
X14
Economic motivation
0.225**
X15
Scientific orientation
0.354**
X16
Mass media participation
0.021NS
X17
Information sharing behaviour
0.183**
X18
Management orientation
-0.234**
*** Significant at 1% level
** Significant at 5% level NS: Non-Significant
Computed correlation coefficient of orientation towards
incentive and assistance from external agency explained the
interest of farmers for technical and financial services under
various programmes. Increases in age would imply much
better knowhow and exposures for development programmes
and thus retained significance with perception. Regular
extension contact with staffs at development agencies and
frequent extension participation in trainings, meetings and
seminars improves the perception. Economic motivation
would thrust agriculture as a livelihood option and scientific
orientation would structure farm practices and farmer
perceived the development programmes as a means for that.
And finally the variable risk orientation and management
orientation found to move in opposite direction to perception.
Farmers who are ready to accept all challenges in agriculture
and have acquired enough managerial skill of the farm never
wish to be dependents of Government assistance thus
retaining a negative direction of movement.
The results are in concordance with the findings of Kansana
(2008) [5], Vinayakumar (2015) [9], Hinduja et al. (2017) [4] on
the relation of profile with perception.
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Conclusion
The study shows that there is positive influence of
communication and psychological behavior of the farmers
towards their welfare. It is suggested that, there is a need of
government assistant to extension agencies to influence the
farmer’s communication and psychological behavior for their
welfare and their perception. Regular extension contact with
staffs at development agencies and frequent extension
participation in trainings, meetings and seminars improves the
perception. The findings shows that the government still can
play a vital role in improving their developmental
programmes for the welfare of the farmers
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