MSc

Vegetable and Fruit Promotion Council, Keralam (VFPCK) was established in
the state to bring many fold improvements in the field production and marketing of
fruits and vegetables employing the farmer participatory approach through Self Help
Groups(SHGs). The SHGs are the back bone of VFPCK. SHGs are groups of farmers
with identified common objectives, tasks, group identities and neighbourhoods. The
Council is moulding the SHGs as the basic level institutional units for introducing
innovative intervention in horticulture. VFPCK has a different approach in extension
management in comparison to the traditional extension system mainly followed by
State Department of Agriculture. It has its unique and own management approach
with a participatory and intimate style. Hence a study becomes very important to
analyse the managing / coaching for performance improvement of SHG farmers.
The research programme was designed to study the performance of the Self
Help Groups of the VFPCK with a view to suggest measures for improvement of the
work efficiency. The main objective was to study the managing / coaching for
performance improvement of SHG farmers. The study aimed to delineate the reward
and recognition activities prevailing in the Organisation. It was also envisaged to
conduct a detailed case documentation with a built in SWOC analysis on a model
Swasraya Karshaka Samithi (SKS) Finally, the study aimed to suggest suitable
policy measures for improvement of the work efficiency of VFPCK.
The study was limited to three districts of Kerala viz., Thrissur, Palakkad and
Ernakulam. There were two categories of respondents. Ninety six farmers (36
master farmers and 60 beneficiary farmers) and 29 Assistant Managers constituted the
samples. The data were collected using separate pre-structured and pre-tested
interview schedules. The case analysis of the model Swasraya Karshaka Samithi (SKS)
was done in Anappara SKS at Chalakkudi for which focussed group workshop was
employed. Analytical tools such as Percentage analysis and Kendal’s coefficient of
concordance were used.
The performance rating of Self Help Groups of VFPCK was observed to be
74.04, which shows 74 per cent effectiveness in performance. The performance of
SHGs was found to be comparatively good in terms of ‘regularity of SHG meetings’
132
(80.97), ‘knowledge of farmers in vegetable / banana cultivation’ (78.71) and group
cohesiveness (76.57). The performance rating of service support from VFPCK was
found to be 78.20 per cent. High performance rating was registered for ‘increased
marketing facility’ (89.50) followed by ‘accessibility to credit’ (79.30). Further, majority of
the farmers changed from partial to full adoption of technologies in banana and vegetable
cultivation in most of the agricultural practices. There was 60.13 per cent rating for the socioeconomic
empowerment of farmers brought about by VFPCK. The socio-economic
empowerment was comparatively high in the case of ‘increased income from agriculture’
(71.52% rating) followed by ‘increased social participation’ (69.77% rating), where as it was
the lowest in the case of ‘increased savings’ with a rating of 33.65 per cent only. The
performance rating of the coaching support to farmers by Assistant Managers was observed to
be 78.11 per cent. However, the farmers (52.20 %) rated the farmer motivational practices in
VFPCK as poor. There was 61.97 per cent rating for the employee motivational measures in
VFPCK, where in the ‘performance appraisal’ measures were rated high (70.68%) and the
promotional opportunity was rated as low (53.16 %). The recognition and respect the
Assistant Managers get from farmers was perceived as the most satisfying item with a rating
of 80.68 per cent. However, the Assistant Managers were least satisfied because of the present
job insecurity.
The case analysis done in Anappara SKS at Chalakkudi revealed that active
SHGs, farmers involved in commercial cultivation, elimination of middle men, and
increased bargaining power are its strengths. Lack of enough storage facility was the
only major weakness the SKS had.
Many measures like proper provision of storage and processing facilities in all the
SKSs, measures to improve farmer and group recognition based on performance, and
redefining area of operation for Assistant Managers for enhancing efficiency of operation are
required at policy level to improve the effectiveness of VFPCK