Socio-Demographic and Economic Determinants of Farmers’ Attitude towards Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) in Maharashtra, India

Abstract

This research article investigates the attitudes of farmers towards Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) based on an empirical study of 180 farmers. The present study was conducted at Latur district of Marathwada division in Maharastra. The study primarily employed ex-post facto research design. Latur district was selected because district having more FPOs (90 FPO) therefore, it was facilitated him to obtain factual data from the Farmers. Thus the total 9 FPO and 180 farmers were selected for the study. The multi-stage sampling procedure was adopted to systematically select the study participants. A Likert-type five point continuum scales employed to capture the degree of agreement or disagreement with various statements for the measurement of farmer’s attitude. The study examines various socio-economic and communication characteristics of the farmers, including  age, education, extension contact, social participation, mass media exposure, landholding, cropping pattern, annual income, occupation, economic motivation, and risk orientation. It revealed that, the majority of the farmers (72.22%) had moderately positive attitude, followed by 11.67% farmers had high positive and 11.11% of farmers had low positive attitude, respectively. The findings reveal a predominantly moderately positive attitude among farmers towards FPOs, influenced by factors such as exposure of mass media and medium levels of extension contact, and active participation in community organizations. The acquired data has been analysed with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Chi-Square was used with a .05 level of confidence.