Abstract

                                The present study used the concepts of social network analysis to identify the communication networks of farmers of Chittambalam village, Palladam block of Tiruppur District in Tamil Nadu. Whole network approach was followed in the study to explicitly identify the communication network of vegetable farmers in the village. Name generator technique was used to collect network data. Comprehensive social network analysis software UCINET 6 was used to measure the network properties and NETDRAW for visual representation of network data. The findings revealed that only 9 % of all possible direct linkages are present in the network and the farmers were not well connected. This emphasized the need to increase the interconnections among the farmers in the network.

Key words : Farmers, Social networks, Innovation, Adoption.