Factors Influencing Utilization of Market Led Extension Practices by the Farmers

Abstract

Indian agriculture has marked a greater progress since independence in the areas of technology, infrastructure, economics, education and communication. The extension system’s objective of focusing on mere agricultural production should be extended beyond marketing, in order to promote all-round empowerment of the farmers. With a major thrust of extension agencies focused on production techniques till now, market led extension holds the key to the future. The present study was carried out to analyze the factors infl uencing utilization of market led extension practices by the farmers in grape, arecanut and maize crops. Ex-post-facto research design was used for conducting the study. The study was taken up in Uttara Kannada district for arecanut, Bagalkot and Vijayapura districts for grapes and Belagavi and Haveri districts for maize. The sample for the study was 240. Karl Pearson correlation and multiple regression analysis were used to identify the factors infl uencing utilization of market led extension practices by the farmers. The variables namely innovative proneness, scientifi c orientation, access to e-tools and membership in farmers’ organization in grapes, mass media participation, access to e-tools and farm resource base in arecanut and education, mass media participation and economic motivation in maize had signifi cant relationship with utilization of market led extension practices. These variables are the predictors of utilization of market led extension practices.