MSc

The present study was intended to know the impact of the Rubber Processing Campaign, 1992 of the Rubber Board on the small growers in respect of knowledge and adoption in processing and to elicit information on constraints by the respondents.
Palakkad district of Kerala state was taken as the sample area for study. One hundred small growers who attended the campaign and thirty small growers who had no participation in the campaign were contacted at random, and data were collected with the help of a structured interview schedule. The data collected from the respondents were analysed by statistical procedures such as percentage, mean frequency, ‘t’ test and Chisquare test. The major findings of the study are summarized as follows.
Ninety nine per cent of the participants opined that the processing campaign was useful to them. Thirty one percent of the participants have started producing quality sheets consequent to campaign classes. The people who were producing quality sheets already were eighteen percent from the participants and thirty percent from the non-participants. So it implies that three fourth cultivators in general were producing ungraded rubber earlier to the campaign and that one third participants started producing good quality sheets.
The farmers have gained a fair amount of knowledge in various practices of processing, especially in proper straining of latex. But they poorly understood the use of chemicals such an anti-coagulants, bleaching agents and mould growth preventives. Also their gain in knowledge was limited in majority of the cases, in respect of acid concentration for coagulation and bulking practices.
However, wide gap was found between the level of knowledge of participants and that of the non-participants in most of the practices emphasizing the hypothesis that the impact of the campaign in respect of knowledge was substantial with the mean score of the participants being at 31.64 out of 50 marks as against 20.63 scored by the non- participants. The supremacy of the exposed group was found more evident, when the means of both groups were statistically ‘t’ tested, the result being significant at 0.01 level. Another aspect to be noted is that 53 per cent of the participants scored above 60 as against only 7 per cent for their counterparts.
The study further reveled that the participants have improved their adoption level in general, but not in proportion to the knowledge gained. A wide change was noticed in straining of latex. However most of them pursued the old practices in standardization of latex and coagulation. Failure in adoption in major practices was found to be due to disinclination rather than ignorance. But poor adoption in use of chemicals was more out of ignorance. However, there was an appreciable improvement in adoption as judged by mean scores obtained by the participants and non-participants in adoption which were 23.69 and 14.97, respectively out of total score of 50. When the variances in the mean of both groups were statistically tested the result was significant at 0.01 level. So, the impact of the campaign in respect of adoption was also positive, though only to a limited extent.
Though a number of constraints were expressed by the participants in the adoption of improved practices, the two that ranked most important were those having economic implication namely not getting due price for grade sheet at village level and that ‘the price difference prevailing between Grade 4 and ungraded rubber is not worth the efforts involved’. Surprisingly, another probable hypothesis of non co-operation of tapper in the effort have assumed only the fourth rank.
Among the non-participants also, economic consideration was felt as a strong constraint, but not as strong as that expressed by the participants. However, the most felt constraint was ‘the lack of facility’.
The chi-square analysis of personal and socio-economic profiles of the participants with their knowledge and adoption produced varying results.
As far as knowledge was concerned, factors like annual income, share of income from rubber, profession, processing person, experience, reading of magazine and the receipt of subsidy had significant relationship at 1 per cent level whereas age and size of unit had significant relationship at 5 per cent level. Education had no association with knowledge.
In the case of adoption, only exposure to reading of magazine and receipt of subsidy had more significant relationship. The size of unit, and annual income bore significant relation while all the other factors such as age, education, share of income from rubber, profession, processing person, experience had no relationship at all.
Spread of knowledge in processing and its adoption will take its course of progress once the marketing of grade wise rubber improves further.
It is suggested that the Rubber Board may help marketing facilities improve at village level through the service of Rubber producers societies and make available locally chemicals and standard sieves with technical knowhow through RPS. It is recommended that the Rubber Board may deem it fit to make attractive the subsidy schemes of sheeting roller and smoke house, to cover more beneficiaries. Also it may increase circulation of the magazine ‘Rubber’, by making it more attractive.