Evaluation of the socio-economic status of open and protected vegetable growers in mid hill zone of Himachal Pradesh Thakur Niyati*, Sharma Ravinder, Kumar Kartik1, Shilpa, Sharma Ajit Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan (H.P.) – 173230 1Division of Agricultural Extension Education, SKUAST, Jammu, (Jammu and Kashmir)-180009 *E-mail: thakniyati18ur@gmail.com
Online Published on 19 March, 2024. Abstract The present study was conducted to evaluate the socio-economic status of open and protected vegetable growers. A sample of 240 respondents was chosen randomly using multistage random sampling from the mid-hill zone of Himachal Pradesh. The farmers were divided into three categories: marginal (less than one hectare), small (1 to 2 hectares) and medium (2 to 4 hectares). The study was based on both primary and secondary data. The study area had an average family size of 5.93 persons (protected cultivation) and 5.46 (open cultivation). In the study area, nuclear families were dominant for protected cultivation (55.83%) as well as open cultivators (62.5%). The percentage of workers was lower in protected cultivation (79.81%) than in open cultivation (81.31%). The dependency ratio for protected cultivation (0.25) and open cultivation (0.23) revealed that on average, one worker has to support less than one family member. Agriculture was perhaps the most common occupation in the study area with 78.54 per cent for protected cultivation and 81.46 per cent for open cultivation. The study area has a high literacy rate for both protected (89.74%) and open cultivators (89.89%). The size of herd was more in case of open cultivation (1.80 ACU) as compared to protected cultivation (2.62 ACU). For all the socio-economic factors between both the farming, no significant difference was found for age and formal schooling years, whereas, significant difference was found for family size, experience in vegetable cultivation, workers and dependents. Top Keywords Protected cultivation, Socio-economic, Sescriptive statistics, ACU, Aingh cube root and Levene’s test. Top |