Entrepreneurial behaviour of fruit nursery growers in District Kulgam of J&K UT Farooq Farah1,*, Kubrevi Syed Shafat1, Peer Quadri Javeed Ahmad1 1Division of Agriculture Extension and Communication, Faculty of Agriculture, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Wadura, India *e-mail: makhdoomifarah@gmail.com
Online published on 2 April, 2024. Abstract Horticulture in India has developed into a sustainable and profitable venture for small and marginal farmers as a result of a number of careful studies, technological advancements, and regulatory inputs. It is a matter of satisfaction that food consumption levels and household income has increased. Moreover, this industry has begun to draw the attention of entrepreneurs who want to develop horticultural enterprises. As a result, there is a lot of room for the horticulture business to expand and prosper. Horticulture plays a very important role for the economic development of J&K and contributes significantly to the UT’s economy. In Jammu and Kashmir horticulture is a source of livelihood for about 33 lakh people and about 70 lakh families are directly or indirectly involved and depend on the horticulture sector. Horticulture is the important contributor to SGDP with the share of about 9.5 per cent (Anonymous, 2020). The fruit crops grown in the Kashmir Valley are apple, pear, cherry, stone fruits like plum, peach, apricot etc. As nurseries are the base of horticulture, there are hundreds of registered and un-registered nurseries in the Kashmir region which supply plants to orchardists. The present research was carried out in district Kulgam of Jammu and Kashmir UT to study the entrepreneurial behaviour of fruit nursery growers. This district was selected purposively on the basis of maximum number of fruit nurseries, and a total of 218 number of fruit nursery growers were taken for collecting the primary data with the aid of an interview schedule. Data derived from the interviews of the sampled growers was examined using competent statistical procedures. A total of five components of entrepreneurial behavior were taken for study. Majority (48.16%) of the respondents showed medium innovativeness, majority (52.30%) showed medium decision making ability. Most (76.14%) of the respondents had medium economic motivation, majority (76.15%) of the respondents indicated medium risk orientation and majority (60.55%) of the respondents had medium management orientation. The summation of all the scores of these components arrived at the total entrepreneurial behavior score and it was concluded that most (67.80 %) of the respondents showed medium, followed by high (18.40 %) and low (13.80 %) entrepreneurial behaviour. Top Keywords Entrepreneurial behaviour, Fruit nursery growers, Horticulture, Kulgam. Top |