Multi- dimensional analysis of self - employment among farm women

Abstract

The present study entitled “ A Multi-dimensional Analysis of Self-employment among Farm Women” was done with the following major objectives. 1. To analyse the attitude of farm women towards self-employment in agriculture and allied fields. 2. To study the personal socio-psychological factors that would influence the attitude of farm women towards self-employment in agriculture and also their entrepreneurial behaviour. 3. To analyse the preferences of farm women regarding the various self-employment avenues in agriculture. 4. To analyse the training needs of farm women in the various avenues. 5. To suggest a suitable training strategy for farm women. 6. To identify the constraints faced by farm women in doing self-employment in agriculture. The study was conducted in Neyyattinkara Taluk of Thiruvananthapuram District. Using a 2 stage randam sampling procedure, a total of 120 farm women were selected from four panchayats. Personal interview was conducted with the help of well structured and pre-tested interview schedule to collect data from the respondents. The collected data were analysed using suitable statistical procedures. The results thus obtained were as follows Majority of the respondents were found to be having high educational status, small size of holdings, low farming experience, low annual income, low social contact, high massmedia contact and high information source utilisation. A favourable attitude towards self –employment in agriculture was recorded for majority of respondents. Their entrepreneurial behaviour was also high. Other attributes which are necessary for entrepreneurship like self-confidence, innovativeness, economic motivation, management orientation, participation in implementing decisions and risk orientation were also high. Two thirds of the respondents were having low knowledge level. Age, farming experience and economic motivation showed negative correlation with attitude. Regarding preferences of farm women for the various self-employment avenues, vegetable production was the most preferred one followed by poultry and mushroom cultivation. Training needs were analysed for the major areas by computing the weighted mean training need score. In vegetable production, preparation of insecticide and fungicide solution had the high score. Majority of the farm women preferred peripatetic type of training, medium duration of training and the summer season for training. The most preferred venue was farm/residence of progressive farmers and the methodology chosen was demonstration. Lack of sufficient financial assistance was identified as the most important constraint by majority of the farm women.