Filling the information gap through Developing and Validating Entrepreneurial technical information Packages (ETIPs) for Potential Agricultural Entrepreneurs. Journal of Community Mobilization and Sustainable Development

Abstract

Many potential entrepreneurs are not able to reap benefits of good technologies and protocols standardized at research institutes as they are not readily available to farmers for adoption in appropriate Entrepreneurial Technical Information Packages (ETIPs) form. An attempt was made to take up action research to develop such packages including the thorough technical analysis and precise in terms of projects inputs (supplies) and outputs (production). Perception of practitioners and experts on information needs of an enterprise was considered as the basis for the development of such packages. The exploratory part of the study was carried out in NCR of Delhi. On the basis of need analysis and potential of the area, six implementable agricultural technologies; mushroom production, vermicomposting, hybrid tomato seed production in net house, baby corn cultivation, apiary and honey bee production and protected crop cultivation, were selected. To proceed for designing of implementable ETIPs the strength of relevance of information and need for agri enterprise creation was established. The data from established entrepreneurs, experts in the subject matter, journalism experts were collected through survey and case study method. These technological packages were tested and refined. Farmer’s practices in planning, management of their farm enterprises and their information needs were made part of the final packages. Exploratory methods were used for assessing opinions of all stakeholders. The final package was found effective on almost all the journalistic parameters including content, format and illustrations.