Socio-economical Profile and Its Correlation with Entrepreneurial Behaviour of Vegetable Growers in Varanasi District of Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

Vegetables are widely grown crops throughout the country as a commercial crop. Vegetables constitute an important item of human diet Vegetables are important constituents of Indian agriculture and nutritional security due to their short duration, high yield, nutritional richness, economic viability and ability to generate on-farm and off-farm employment. Our country is blessed with diverse agro-climates with distinct seasons, making it possible to grow wide array of vegetables. Farmers deciding to take particular crop or use scientific methods to grow crops exhibit entrepreneurial behaviour. Understanding of such behaviour is essential to improve the quality of extension services offered by the institutional and non-institutional agencies. So the present study was carried out during the year 2021-2022 in four blocks of Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh with the objective to study the socio-economic profile of vegetable growers and to find out the correlation between socio-economic profile and entrepreneurial behaviour. Ex-post-facto design was selected as an appropriate research design to investigate the variables influencing the entrepreneurial behaviour of vegetable growers The present study was conducted on 160 respondents and data were collected through personal interview method with the help of interview schedule. The study revealed that the majority of vegetable growers (60.62 per cent) belonged to middle age group, (77.50 per cent) belong to Other Backward Caste, (36.25%) were having education up to intermediate level, ( 86.25 per cent) were married, (66.87 per cent) belonging to joint family system, (61.25 per cent) were having 5 to 8 members in a family, (92.50 per cent) were having Pucca house, (79.38 per cent) respondents were engaged in agriculture as main occupation, (53.75 per cent) respondents were having membership of only one social organizations, (38.75 per cent) were having 2 to 4 ha of land, (51.25 per cent) were having medium material possession, (30.00 per cent) were having Rs. 2 lakh to 3 lakh. The result from the study reveals that majority of the respondents belonged to medium socio-economic status (42.50 per cent) followed by high socio-economic status (31.87 percent) and remaining belonged to low socio-economic status (25.63 per cent). Most of the socio-economic variable were having positively and significantly correlation with entrepreneurial behaviour. The variable age was found to have negative correlation with entrepreneurial behaviour of vegetable growers. Thus the correlation analysis reveals that people with better education , more land holding, higher social participation, more material possession and higher annual income have higher entrepreneurial behavior in growing vegetables. While those farmers who were young are growing vegetable more successfully as an entrepreneur.