ATTITUDE OF RAINFED FARMERS TOWARDS AGRI-ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Abstract

In the contemporary scenario, the agriculture sector around the world has experienced profound changes in its core areas. Among these, a paradigm shift from agriculture to agri-entrepreneurship is one of the essential pathway to rejuvenate Indian agriculture and to make more attractive and profitable venture. Understanding this, the present exploration was carried out to assess the attitude of the rainfed farmers towards agri-entrepreneurship in Anantapuramu district of Andhra Pradesh. A survey was conducted among the farmers of Anantapuram district with a sample of 100 respondents selected by simple random sampling. The results revealed that, more than half of the farmers’ had favourable attitude (45%) towards agri-entrepreneurship followed by moderately favourable (36%) and unfavourable (19%) attitude towards the agri-entrepreneurship and the factors such as education, scientific orientation, trainings undergone, extension contact and economic motivation were the factors, positively and significantly influencing the farmers’ attitude towards agri-entrepreneurship. The study also depicted the ranking of various agri-business activities as preferred by the farmers and it revealed that, ‘sheep rearing’ ranks first preferred agri-business activity followed by millets value addition, dairy farming, seed processing units, poultry farming, mushroom production, medicinal crops cultivation and apiculture. In order to improve the farmers’ attitude towards agri-entrepreneurship and convert them to agripreneurs, regular skill oriented training programmes should be conducted on the agri-business activities with special emphasis on rain fed agriculture.