Socio-economic characteristics of the farmers practicing cage farming in Karnataka

Abstract

The present study aims to understand the personal, communication and psychological characteristics of the farmers who are practicing cage farming. The study was conducted in two taluks practicing highest cage farming in Udupi district of Karnataka state namely, Uppunda and Byndoor during 2020. The primary data were collected randomly from 60 farmers from each of the taluks practicing cage farming. Thus, framing the total sample size to 120. The findings of the study showed that more than half the farmers belonged to middle age (56.67%) group, studied up to high school (53.33%) and nearly one third (35.83%) of the farmers had 20*6*5 cage size structure. Large majority (97.50%) of the farmers were male followed by majority of the farmers persuing cage fish rearing as major occupation (65.83%) and 87.50 percent of the farmers as minor occupation. Majority of the farmers belonged to middle (91.67%) income category having medium level of extension contact (56.67%) and extension participation (62.50%). Whereas, majority of the farmers had high (88.33%) level of economic motivation with medium (83.33%) level of innovativeness and scientific orientation (81.67%). Majority of farmers had medium (79.17%) level of social participation, less than fifty percent of farmers had medium (46.67) level of achievement motivation and more than half the farmers belonged to medium (54.17%) category of risk orientation. Large scale expansion of cage farming is the need of the hour which acts as an opportunity for small scale fish farmers as an alternative livelihood.