To Study the Profile Characteristics of National Horticulture Mission farmers in Krishnagiri District of Tamil Nadu

Abstract

The study done on the profile characteristics of National Horticulture Mission farmers in Krishnagiri district revealed that the majority (53.33%) of the NHM beneficiaries belonged to the old and middle age (40.00%) category. They were educated from primary school (20.00%), functional literate (18.33%), High School (16.67%), Intermediate (11.67%) and Illiterate level (8.33%). Majority do farming (66.67%) and farming with animal husbandry (23.333%) according to this study. Regarding land holding, the majority (55%) are small and marginal farmers (21.67%). They possess medium (51.67%) annual income and 40% belong to low medium income category. With regard to farmers experience, they had high (43.33%) and low level (38.34%) of farming experience. They possess medium (60.00%) and low (28.34%) less of extension agency contact. Majority (60.00%) had a medium level of risk orientation, followed by 33.67% with a high level of risk orientation in Krishnagiri district. The majority had (45.00%) medium level of scientific orientation followed by a medium to high level of mass media exposure (26.67%) in this study.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.10.112033

Pages

1 - 7

Creative Commons

Copyright

© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

Keywords

Introduction

The National Horticulture Mission implemented in TamilNadu and across India aims to improve the horticulture production, productivity and marketability of horticultural produce. Involving the small and marginal farmers, farmer organizations like Farmer Interest Groups, and Farmer's Producer Organisations, it aims at achieving economies of scale across the nation. At present, more focus is given on raising more crop per drop and doubling of our farmers income through increasing the yield through using excellent germplasm available with us, using improved plant material stocks for propagation and utilising the present-day advanced precision technologies by carrying out micro irrigation technologies. To foster skill development and create new employment opportunities for rural youth in horticultural sector and in post-harvest management technologies, today National Horticultural Mission (NHM) is focusing on establishing new cold chains, value addition centres, ware housing facilities with advanced logistics support to improve the productivity and profitability of horticultural sector. Keeping this in view, the present research was undertaken to study the profile characteristics of National Horticulture Mission farmers in Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu.

Methodology

The study was undertaken in Krishnagiri district. Three taluks, namely Krishnagiri, Hosur, and Shoologiri, were selected for this study based on the participation of beneficiaries under NHM. A list of villages was selected from the respective blocks where more NHM activities were carried out. From the list, two villages in each block were selected based on the maximum number of trainees of NHM. Nagondapalli, Thattiganapalli, Maharajakadai, Naralapalli, Kudisadhanapalli, and Panapalli were the six villages selected for this study. A total of 120 beneficiaries was selected using a proportionate random sampling method.

Results Discussion

The findings on the distribution of NHM beneficiaries according to their profile characteristics of NHM are presented below

Age

Age is an important factor as  it reveals the mental maturity of  an individual to take decisions for meeting his/her needs. The distribution of farmers according to their different age is presented in Fig 1

Fig 1.  Distribution of beneficiary and non-beneficiary farmers according to  their age

                                                            (N=120)

Data presented in the Table 1 indicated that, among beneficiaries, the majority (53.33%) of the respondents in this study belonged to the old age category, followed by middle (40.00%) and young (6.67%). In case of non-beneficiaries, 48.34  per  cent of  the  respondents  belonged  to old  age  group followed by middle (40.00 %) and young (11.66%). From the above result, it can be concluded that the majority of both beneficiary and non-beneficiary farmers belonged to the old age group, followed by the middle age group. The young generation today do not show  interest  to  take  up  farming as their profession because  of  low  profitability  and  hard  work, as  farming  involved  lot of  physical  work.  Further, the younger generation today are educated, and they try to get into other sector jobs which are more remunerative and need less labour. The results are in accordance with the findings of Latha (2015)

Education

            Educational status of an individual farmer plays a vital role in enhancing his knowledge level.  It plays a role in motivating him/  her towards  knowing  new  things  and understanding  them  new  things. The distribution of respondents according to their level of education is furnished in Figure 2

 Figure 2. Distribution of beneficiary and non beneficiary farmers according to their educational status

                                                                                                           (N = 120)

From the findings presented in  Table  2,  it  was  evident that  20.00 percent of beneficiary  respondents  studied up  to  primary education, followed by  18.33 percent being functionally literate, 16.67 percent in High school, and 11.67 percent in Illiterate and Intermediate, and only 3.33 percent studied upto  Post graduation  level. In the case of non-beneficiaries, 28.33 percent of the respondents were functional literate, followed by 20 percent with primary school education and 16.67 percent with upper primary school education. Approximately 11.67 percent of the non-beneficiaries have a high school education, followed by another 8.33 percent who belong to the illiterate and intermediate categories. A meager 3.33 percent have undergraduate and postgraduate education and above. The reason   for   the considerable   portion   of the   respondents having functional literate, primary education  to  high  schooling  education in case of  both  beneficiary  as  well  as non-beneficiary  is    due to  the  presence of more government educational institutions offering their educational services free of cost in the study area . The results is in accordance with the findings of Latha (2015)

Farm Size

            It was operationalized as the total land possessed by the respondent at the time of investigation. Farm Size was conceptualized as the area of land (in hectare) owned and operated by the individual farmers.

            The results on the distribution of the respondents according to their farm size are presented in Table 1

Table 1. Distribution of beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries according to their farm size

                                                                                                   (N=120)

From the data  figured  in Table 4, it could be observed that a majority (55.00%) had small  farm size ranging  from 1-2 ha. of  land  followed by  21.67 per cent  having marginal land holding below1 .00 ha of land, 13.33 per cent medium ,6.67 per cent of semi  medium and 3.33 per cent  belonged to large  farmers  under  NHM beneficiaries category. In case  of  non-beneficiary  farmers majority (55.00 per  cent) of  farmers  had  marginal  land  holding followed  by  small  (35.00%),  semi  medium  (5.00%),  and medium (5.00%). None of  them belonged to large farm size.

The above  mentioned  table 1  revealed  that  majority  of  beneficiary  and  non-beneficiary  farmers of NHM possessed  marginal land  holding  to small  land  holding. This  is  due  to the fragmentation of their ancestral land holding from generation to generation leading to the sub division  of  land  to  smaller  size  of  land  holding.

Annual Income

Table 2. Distribution of beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries according to their Annual Income

                                                                                              (N = 120)

From the data figured in Table 2 it could be observed that a majority ( 51.67  Per  cent)  of  beneficiaries  belonged  to  medium  annual  income  group  i.e., Rs. 4,00,000  followed  by  40.00  per  cent  of  beneficiaries  falling under  low  income  group  of  Rs.2,50,000,  followed  by    8.33    per  cent of  beneficiaries under  high  income  group of  Rs more than  5,50,000/-. Whereas 61.67  per cent of non beneficiaries  fall under  low  income group  followed  by  33.33  per  cent  in  medium    income  group  and  5.00  per  cent    of  non beneficiaries fall under high income group. As majority of beneficiaries belonged to  medium level of income group due to the fact that  the beneficiaries gained income by cultivating more of Horticulture crops namely fruits (Mango, banana etc..) and flowers (Rose, Gerbera, carnation etc..)  under  National  Horticulture  Mission. As  the  horticultural  crops  of  perennial  in  nature  planted    under  various  components of  NHM  will  take  up more  gestation    period  to  realize    profit,  the  beneficiaries  gain  income through  other  allied  agricultural  activities  namely  fisheries by  maintaining  pond  in  their field or rearing of animals. In case of the non beneficiaries, majority belonged to  low  income group and the reason possibly  might  be that they  depend  upon farming alone which fetches them less farm income. In the study area the farming community also takes  up  agriculture  as  profitable venture  by  integrating  all  components  namely  poultry, dairy  and  fishing  which  fetches them  off  seasonal income  to  compensate  their losses due  to  seasonal  monsoon fluctuation contributing  to  the  loss  of  agricultural  crops.  This might  be  reason for  the  above  results behind  that  not  much  of  variance being observed  in  the  income  level  of  both  beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of NHM. The results is in accordance with the findings of Latha (2015)

Farming Experience

Adoption, knowledge, skills, participation and decision making of beneficiaries of National Horticulture Mission might be influenced by their farm experience in horticultural crop farming. The data regarding the experience of the beneficiary farmers was collected and are presented in Table:3

Table:3 Distribution of beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries according to their farming experience in horticulture

                                                                                                                        N=120

It  could  be  seen  from  the  table 3  that  43.33  per  cent    of  respondent farmers were found to have high level of farming experience of 34 to 46 years of experience followed  by  38.34  per  cent  of  respondents falling  under  low  experience of 10-22 years followed by 18.33 per cent of beneficiaries falling under medium level of  farming  experience  with  22-34  years of  experience  in  farming.  In  case  of  non –beneficiaries, majority (56.67 %) of  respondents falls  under  the  low  level  of  farming  experience followed  by  23.33  per  cent  of  high  level  and  20 per  cent  with  medium  level  of experience in farming .It  could be  concluded  that  majority  of  the  NHM farmers  has  rich  farming  experience as they are involved in agriculture and  related allied  farm activities  including  Agri  business  as  the  main  occupation for  decades  together.  Whereas in case of  non-beneficiary  respondents, they had  low  level  of  farming  experience  due  to  the  fact  that  majority  of  them  depend  upon service sector (Government / private ) in their young age , and after retirement has entered into horticulture as their main venture which was noticed by the researcher during investigation.

Extension agency contact

            The results on distribution of the respondents according to their extension agency contact are presented in Table 4

Table 4. Distribution of beneficiaries and non beneficiaries according to their extension agency contact

                                                                                                                          (N=120)

The data depicted in table 4 indicated that, Majority (60.00 %)  of respondents  fall  under  the  medium extension agency contact  with  a  score  of  23-35, followed by 23.33 per cent fall under low level of contact and another 16.67 per cent  under  high  level  of  extension agency contact as in the case  of beneficiaries    of  National  Horticulture  Mission.  Whereas in case of non-beneficiaries, a majority (53.34%) of non-beneficiaries fall  under  the  category  of  medium  level  of  extension agency contact,  followed  by  43.33 per  cent  of  respondents  falling under low and a meagre (3.33 %) falling under high level of extension agency. From the above findings it could be concluded that majority of  respondents  from beneficiaries  and  non-beneficiaries  fall  under medium level of extension agency contact. The results are in concurrence   with the findings of Deshmukh (2003)

Risk orientation

Management in farming generally is characterized by many uncontrollable variables like climate change, price fluctuations in farm markets and so on. Studies in the developed and developing countries have shown that individuals vary in their willingness to take risk. Therefore, it was felt appropriate to study the risk-orientation of the beneficiaries of National Horticulture Mission. Data in this regard are collected and presented in Table: 5.

Table:5 Distribution of beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries according to their risk orientation

                                      (N=120)

The data presented in table 5, it was revealed that majority (60 per  cent) of the NHM beneficiaries belonged  to    category  of  medium  risk  taking  ability  followed  by  36.67  per  cent under  high  risk  and  3.33  per  cent  under  low  risk  taking  ability  in  case  of  beneficiaries.

Similar trend was observed in case of non-beneficiary also as majority of 76.67 per cent of non-beneficiary belonged to medium risk taking ability followed by 21.67 per cent of the respondents belonging to low risk taking ability and the remaining meagre (1.66%) having high level of risk taking ability in this study. The findings is in accordance with the results of Krunal Gilkari (2011)

Conclusion

The findings of the present study reveal that Majority (53.33%) of the NHM beneficiaries belonged to old age and middle age (40.00%). In the  non-beneficiaries category, Majority and another belong to old (48.34%)  and middle age (40.00%). With regard to their education status, the beneficiaries of NHM were educated from primary school (20.00%), Functional literate (18.33%), High school (16.67%), Intermediate (11.67%) and Illiterate level (11.67%). In the non-beneficiary category, they are mostly functional literate (28.33%), with primary school level (16.67%) upto High school level (11.67%) and in Intermediate and Illiterate (8.33% and 8.33%) in this study. In occupational status, Majority of NHM beneficiaries do farming (66.67%) and farming with animal husbandry (23.33%). In the non-beneficiary category, Majority (56.67%) do farming and another category 36.67% do farming with animal husbandry in the study area. In land holding, among the beneficiaries of NHM, Majority (55.00 per cent) are small and marginal farmers (21.67%). In the non-beneficiary category majority (55.00%) are marginal (55.00%) and small (35.00%) farmers in this study. In Annual income, among the beneficiaries of NHM, Majority (51.67%) have below to the medium level of annual income and 40 per cent belong to the low level of annual income category in this study. With regard to non- beneficiaries of NHM in the study area, majority (61.67%) have low level of annual income and about 33.00 per cent of the respondents have medium level of annual income. With reference to experience in horticulture, Majority (43.33%) of the beneficiaries of NHM have high level of farming experience followed by low level (38.34% ) of farming experience in this study. Majority (60.00%) of the NHM beneficiaries have medium and low level (23.33%) of extension agency contact in this study. With regard to non-beneficiaries majority (53.34%) had medium to low (43.33%) level of extension agency contact. With regard to non-beneficiary respondents, medium (53.34%) to low (43.33%) level of extension agency contact was reported in this study. Majority (60.00%) of the beneficiaries of NHM have medium level of risk orientation followed by 33.67% with high level of risk orientation in the study area. In the non-beneficiary category, majority (76.67%) have medium level of risk orientation followed by 21.67% o the respondents with low level of risk orientation in this study.

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