Sugarcane Growers' Socio-economic and Psychological Attributes in the Balrampur Area of Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

Sugarcane is cultivated mainly for its juice from which sugar, jaggery, and sugar palm are processed. Most of the world's sugarcane is grown in subtropical and tropical regions. Sugarcane is an established source of sugar and the current benchmark for efficient bio fuel production is the first generation feedstock. The present study was conducted to measure the socioeconomic and psychological characteristics of sugarcane growers in the Balrampur district, which was purposively selected. The study was conducted in 24 selected villages in Tulsipur tehsil of the Balrampur district of Uttar Pradesh. The samples consisted of 316 respondents who were selected through the proportional random sampling method. The respondents were personally interviewed during February to May 2020. Data was collected through a pre-structured and pre-tested interview schedule and the study on socio-economic characteristics showed that most of the respondents (51.58%) were middle-aged. Respondents were illiterate (62.78%), they took up agricultural farming as their primary occupation and had operational land up to 1 hectare with an income level was medium level of Rs.750000/- It was also revealed that most of the respondents sometimes took part in social participation. whereas (67.08%) had medium-level participation in sugarcane grower extension programs, while 33.86 and 44.30 per cent of them had medium and low levels of innovation respectively. (58.86%) of the respondents had moderate cosmopolitness. Respondents try to get more information and try new ideas and techniques within their budget and limits as well as farmers who are prone to innovations try to collect information about new technology from different aspects, they want to learn new farming methods, improve production and technologies and adopt those technologies at a faster rate with maximum accuracy.