Socio-economic Characteristics of Homegardens in Bhimtal block of Nainital District, Uttarakhand, India

Abstract

In the present investigation was carried out to access the socio-economic characteristics of homegardens in Bhimtal block of Nainital district of Uttarakhand during 2014–15. The result show that the maximum number of respondents 34 (51.51%) were middle aged followed by 20 (30.30%) of respondents were in young age category and 12 (18.18%) respondents were in old age. The data showed that maximum number of respondents, 25 (37.87%) had education up to 12* followed by illiterate 17 (25.75%) followed by higher education above 12th respondent 14 (21.21%), whereas 10 (15.15%) had education up to 8th level. It was observed that maximum number of household families 26 (39.39%) belonged to farming which was the primary source of income followed by 22 (33.33%) belonged to service class followed by 13 (19.69%) families that were dependent in the business for their livelihood, followed by wage labourers 5 (7.57%) families. It was found that maximum number of land households 32 (48.48%) were marginal land followed by small landholding households 20 (30.30%), followed by large land holding 14 (21.21%). Almost 50% of the rural households in the hills were headed by women as the men folk migrated to augment the farm income. Data regarding awareness of the forestry programmes among the farmers revealed that majority of the farmers 49 (74.24%) were not aware of the forestry programmes and small number of farmers 17 (25.75%) were aware. About 90% of the total cultivated area is rainfed and irrigated area is only 10 per cent.