Human capital assessment of rice-fish farmers: A study from Coastal Odisha

Abstract

The study was carried out to investigate the socio-economic background, knowledge, and livelihood of the farmers engaged in Rice-Fish farming. Purposive sampling was used to select the study area. One hundred twenty farmers were selected from 6 villages by proportionate random sampling procedure. The responses were obtained from each individual respondent using a pre-tested structured interview schedule designed for data collection. The collected data was tabulated and analysed using appropriate statistical tools and techniques such as frequency, percentage, mean score, and rank order. According to the study, the majority of respondents (48.33%) were middle-aged and had only completed primary school (36.67%). The majority of respondents (46.67%) reported a medium level of social participation. Among the respondents (59.17%) belonged to nuclear families, while the maximum number of respondents (51.66%) had small family size. According to the survey, the majority of respondents (53.33%) had a medium level of extension contact, and all rice growers (100%) had a good understanding of the productivity of high yielding varieties. The vast majority of fish growers (95.0%) knew that the pond should be located in an open space receiving ample sunlight, and the knowledge gap was only (2.50%). The results of the study will be useful to the extension workers for development of appropriate educational strategies, for the researcher, policy makers and commercial farms to extend the benefits of their activities to increase the knowledge and skill of the farmers in respect to Rice-Fish farming system and the livelihood of the farmers also.