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S. FAYAZ, P.V. SATHYA GOPAL* AND S.V. PRASAD
Department of Agricultural Extension, S.V. Agricultural College, Tirupati – 517502, A.P.
The study was conducted in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh during the year 2014-15 to know the level of entrepreneurial behaviour of cotton growers. A sample of 120 respondents was selected for present study. Majority of the respondents possessed medium level of entrepreneurial behaviour followed by low and high levels of entrepreneurial behaviour. Entrepreneurial behaviour was positively and significantly related with education, farm size, annual income, social participation, training undergone, sources of micro finance, scientific orientation and marketing facilities of cotton growers.
Entrepreneurial behaviour, Cotton growers, Correlation
Cotton, the ‘White gold’ or the “King of Fibres”, is one of the oldest fibers cultivated all over the world. Cotton production and trade is widely spread across the world with more than 80 nations cultivating the crop. The origin of cotton is India. The world’s four largest cotton-producing countries are China, India, USA and Pakistan. They account for nearly 79 per cent of the world’s production. In a development context, cotton is crucially important for income and employment providing by its production and processing. The area under cotton cultivation in the world is 36.01 million ha. The world cotton production in 2013-14 is 26.25 Million Metric Tonnes (International Cotton Advisory Committee report 17th November 2014).
Cotton cultivation is a very important part of the Indian agrarian landscape and provides sustainable livelihood to a sizeable population in India. Cotton has been grown in India for more than 6,000 years since the pre- Harappan period, and it is later referred to in the Rig- Veda, composed in 3000 BC. Cotton is cultivated in about 10.31 million hectares in the country, which accounts for 30 per cent of the global cotton area and con-tributes to 22 per cent of the global cotton produce. India is the third largest producer of cotton in world after USA and China. The cotton production of India is 398 lakh bales in 2013-14. (Cotton Advisory Board dated 13th October 2014).
The cotton productivity of India is 552 kg/ha in 2013-14 (Cotton Advisory Board). It is estimated that more than 5.8 million farmers cultivate cotton in India and about 40-50 million people are employed directly or indirectly by the cotton industry. The states of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh are the major producers of cotton, accounting for about 75% of the total production.
Andhra Pradesh ranks third in terms of area and production in India. Cotton crop is the most cultivated commercial crop in Andhra Pradesh. The area under cotton production in Andhra Pradesh is 22.69 lakh hectares in 2013-14 (Cotton Advisory Board dated 13th October 2014). The cotton production of Andhra Pradesh is 78 lakh bales in the year 2013-14. (Cotton Advisory Board dated 13th October 2014). The cotton productivity of Andhra Pradesh is 571 kg ha-1 in 2013-14 (Cotton Advisory Board). Kurnool district ranks first in area and production in Rayalaseema region. The area under cotton cultivation in Kurnool district is 6.77 lakh ha in 2013-14. The cotton production of Kurnool district is 19.44 lakh tonnes. The cotton productivity of Kurnool district is 489 lakh kg-1. (Department of Agriculture, Andhra Pradesh) Kurnool district has regulated cotton markets in Adoni and Nandyal areas.
The entrepreneurs are key persons of any country for promoting economic growth and technological change. The development of entrepreneurship is directly related to the socio-economic development of the society. Eighty per cent of the population resides in the rural areas and seventy per cent of the work force depends on agriculture for their livelihood. Therefore role of farmers is very important in agricultural and socio-economic development of the nation. Farmers should develop the entrepreneurial qualities for betterment of their farming and livelihood. In this context, it was felt necessary to determine the level of entrepreneurial behaviour among the farmers. Entrepreneurial behaviour of farmers is operationally defined as cumulative outcome of several components namely decision making ability, innovativeness, risk bearing ability, achievement motivation, information seeking behaviour, knowledge of the enterprise, managerial assistance, cosmopoliteness and leadership. (Nandapurkar 1980). Keeping this in view of the above scenario, the present study was conducted with the following objectives:
i. To study the entrepreneurial behaviour of cotton growers.
ii. To find out the relationship between different personal-psychological and socio-economic characteristics of cotton growers and their entrepreneurial behavior.
The present study was conducted during the year 2014-15 by following Ex-Post-Facto research design. Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh was purposively selected as it stands first in area and production of cotton in Rayalaseema region. Out of 54 mandals of the district, three mandals namely Kosigi, Adoni and Mantalayam were purposively selected based on highest area and production of cotton. From each of the selected mandals, four villages were selected by following simple random sampling procedure. Thus, a total of twelve villages were selected for the study. A total sample of 120 cotton farmers were selected by selecting 10 farmers from each village through simple random sampling procedure. Scale developed by Venkataramaiah (1991) was used to study entrepreneurial behaviour for this study. Keeping the objectives of the study in view, a semi structured interview schedule was developed and pretested. This was administered to sample respondents through personal investigation. The data obtained were coded, classified and tabulated. The statistical tools such as mean, standard deviation, correlation and regression were used for the analysis of the data.
It is evident from the Table 1 that majority (70.00%) of the cotton growers had medium level of entrepreneurial behaviour followed by low (17.50%) and high (12.50%) levels.
Seeking innovative ideas, spotting the opportunities and taking risk for adoption requires the presence of important psychological traits like decision making ability, self confidence, achievement motivation, which will influence the entrepreneurial behaviour of the farmers. Due to increased commercialization in cotton, more and more technologies were being introduced from time to time and were contributing towards increased productivity and profitability. Farmers were been exposed to all such new innovations by the different input agencies to adopt such technologies. This approach might have developed the entrepreneurial behaviour among cotton growers. On the other side the farmers with illiteracy, poor management practices might have experienced low yields inspite of adoption of innovations. Hence they might have not developed good entrepreneurial qualities. These findings are in conformity with the results of Vidhyadhari (2007), Kiran et al. (2012), Lawrence and Ganguli (2012).
The data furnished in the Table 2 revealed that education, farm size, annual income, social participation, training undergone, scientific orientation, sources of micro finance and marketing facilities had positive and significant relationship at 0.01 per cent level of significance, whereas age and farming experience had non-significant relationship with the entrepreneurial behaviour of Cotton growers. These finding is in line with the results of Suresh (2004) and Subramanyeshwari et al. (2007).
The possible reason for non-significant relationship with age and farming experience might be that, irrespective of age farmer might be influenced by latest
technologies to get high income from their farm and more gaining of farming experience by following traditional methods of farming never act as source of entrepreneurial behaviour. One must have the quality of inclination towards seeking innovations in farm and ready to take risk which will enhance the entrepreneurial behaviour of farmers.
The possible reason for the existence of positive significant relationship between education and the entrepreneurial behavior might be due to the fact that education brings about behavioural changes in an individual, contributes to his self development, change his knowledge about the ‘unknown so far’ areas and motivates him to try the untried ideas, which is essentially contributing to the entrepreneurial behaviour.
Greater the farm size more will be the opportunities for taking risk and implementing innovations. A farmer with high land holding might have chance of implementing innovations on limited reach on his farm and keeping in view of the results of innovations he can adopt innovations on his farm. Being the opportunity of having trialability in his farm the farmer with high land holding will develop more of entrepreneurial behaviour than the farmer with low land holding.
Higher the annual income greater the scope of entrepreneurial behaviour. A farmer with high annual income might be ready to take risks and adopting innovations in his farm without any hesitation. Such behaviour might have motivated him to seek innovations regularly. Being a high income farmer, he might have perceived such expenditure as very low investment.
The possible reason behind positive relationship between social participation and entrepreneurial behaviour might be due to the fact that it enables the entrepreneur to have more social contact which in turn gives him an opportunity to share and gain enormous experiences and valuable information.
Training imparts variety of technical skills which are necessary to run an enterprise and enhances the entrepreneur’s confidence. Because they are aware about the practical aspects of an enterprise, they may able to run the enterprise smoothly and efficiently. Ultimately it will contribute to the profitability of the enterprise.
Capital is the primary means for any entrepreneurial activity. By having enormous source of finance a farmer can explore the ways and means of enhancing profitability of his farm. During the course of time, a farmer experience and exercise his entrepreneurial qualities to achieve the desired goals.
A sound knowledge base coupled with logical thinking will strengthen the scientific orientation of a farmer. Hence a farmer with high scientific orientation might be always taking edge of getting desired results without much orientation. This condition might have developed his entrepreneurial behaviour.
The positive and significant relationship with the market facility and entrepreneurial behaviour can be due to the fact that better facilities to sell their products will enhance the entrepreneur’s confidence and willingness to carry out sustained production. Assured markets will always reduce the risk factor associated with an enterprise and will enhance the profitability. The valuable market information will also help to regulate the output according to the market demands.
Hence it is imperative to focus on enhancing the entrepreneurial behaviour of cotton growers by designing the strategies with the involvement of significant variables so as to achieve the targeted goals of farming.