Empowerment of vegetable farmers through market - led extension

Abstract

The word empowerment can not be contained in its dictionary meaning itself. This word has been ostensibly used without knowing what its weight is. The present study examined the empowerment of vegetable farmers in four dimensions viz., social empowerment, personal empowerment, technological empowerment and economic empowerment through market-led extension activities. Sixty vegetable farmers, participating in self-help groups from two districts and sixty vegetable farmers from the same districts, doing vegetable cultivation with out any self-help group participation took part in the study. The result highlights the fact that the self-help group of respondents had empowerment at the four dimensions and thus ensured the total empowerment. Socio-economic variables viz., educational status of the farmer, family income, land owned, leased land under vegetable cultivation and farmer’s experience in vegetable cultivation also proved their relation to the empowerment level through the study. It was found that personal empowerment had a role in enhancing social participation and social recognition that led to social empowerment and technological empowerment through the increased use of information sources. These changes in people equipped them to add more and more amount to their income and economic empowerment had happened. The empowerment threshold was calculated by correlating two variables such as social participation and personal empowerment. The maximum equal score of personal empowerment that could be attained by the SHG and non-SHG group of respondents who were having the same level of social participation was fixed as the threshold value of empowerment.