Premlata Singh

Constraints Experienced by Agricultural Scientists and Extension Personnel in Rice Knowledge Management and its Delivery

Rice being staple crop, cultivated in almost all over India. In order to provide probable solution about rice cultivation to all the stakeholders, the Indian Institute of Rice Research, Hyderabad launched Rice Knowledge Management Portal (RKMP). The present study was undertaken with an objective to analyse the constraints experienced by agricultural scientists and extension personnel in rice knowledge management and its delivery. The results showed that agricultural scientists and extension personnel faced technological, social, economical and psychological constraints more severely. Under the technological constraints, lack of updated information and technical and Infrastructure problems while using information and communication technologies (ICTs), poor maintenance of ICT tools were major constraints. In case of social constraints, restriction to promote organization information followed by less networking among extension personnel found to be most limiting factor for using portal information. In case of psychological factors, beneits given to particular group of people was found most severe and techno-phobia was found least affecting to respondents for utilizing information. In case of economic constraints, high cost of internet and cost of computer/smart phones were limiting the use of information provided by RKMP. These indings will help in restructuring and necessary modiications for reaching the unreach for information dissemination and making portal more effective for users to ensure timely and relevant information.

An assessment of contract farming system for potato seed production in Punjab-A case study

The study was conducted to assess the contract farming system of potato seed production in Punjab with a sample of 30 contract and 30 non-contract farmers from Jalandhar district of Punjab. The major motivating factors identified for participating in the contract farming were assured price, diversification, access to assured market, extension services etc. There was no participation of marginal and small farmers in contract farming. The average net income of contract farmers was about 12 per cent higher than non-contract farmers. The major constraints in potato seed contract farming were pest and disease attacks, non-availability of labor during peak period, difficulty in meeting quality requirement etc. The study suggests that government, non-governmental organizations and other related agencies should play an active role in the contractual arrangement.

Development of a Work Style Compass and Predicting Research Productivity of Agricultural Scientists

In light of increasing thrust of the public agricultural research system of India to enhance research productivity of its scientists, gauging scientists’ productivity and its personality correlates has been felt crucial. In this context, devising a simpler method to predict research productivity based upon individual work styles had been aimed in the present study. Randomly drawn two hundred agricultural scientists from different cadres of two differently performing agricultural institutes of the country constituted the sample of the study. A work style compass was designed by taking a measurement of individual work styles of the pooled sample after developing and pretesting Likert type scales. A research productivity index was developed to obtain productivity scores of scientists. A correlation and stepwise multiple regression analysis helped in deriving a suitable model to predict research productivity through the identified work style variables. The findings of the study confirmed a strong and positive relationship between research productivity and individual work styles. The results indicate to the crucial need for organizing work style sensitization workshops for the scientists and undertaking organization development interventions at individual institute level at regular intervals.

Knowledge level assessment and influencing factors of vegetable growers in western Uttar Pradesh

The study was conducted in the Ghaziabad and Hapur districts of Uttar Pradesh to ascertain the level of knowledge possessed by vegetable growers through knowledge test and to determine the factors influencing it. A preliminary test of knowledge items was initially administered to 42 vegetable farmers for item analysis. The final items were included in the knowledge test based on the difficulty index (30 to 80), discrimination index (> 0.20) and point-biserial correlation coefficient (> 0.236). The reliability of the knowledge test was measured with the help of split-half method and reliability co-efficient was found to be 0.82, which indicates that this knowledge test is quite reliable. The test was further administered to 200 respondents and it was found that majority of the respondents (70.00%) had moderate level of knowledge, whereas 20.50 and 9.50% of farmers had low and high level of knowledge about vegetable farming. Furthermore, step-wise regression analysis showed that five independent variables, viz. education (X2), farm size (X3), extension contact (X6), extension participation (X7) and mass media exposure (X8) could explain 93.96% of the variation.