Perception of agricultural students towards farming as a profession

Abstract

The prevailing situation of rising unemployment among agricultural graduates calls for a shift towards adopting agriculture as a profession to boost agricultural production and productivity. Thus, a study was conducted at Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University in Telangana state, to measure the perception of agricultural graduates towards agriculture as a profession. An ex post facto research design was employed, as the variables were examined without any form of experimental intervention. The sample consisted of 120 undergraduate students pursuing the final year of the B.Sc. (Hons.) Agriculture programme, who were selected randomly from the study population. data were collected using a pre-structured interview schedule administered through a Google Form, ensuring efficient data collection and minimizing response errors. The study revealed that most of the agricultural graduates had medium level of perception towards agriculture as a profession. Farming hands-on exposure, Mass media exposure and economic motivation has positive and highly significant relationship; Risk orientation showed a positive and significant relationship; Parental encouragement showed negative and highly significant; interest of students in farming as a profession has negative and significant; In contrast, variables such as age, gender, place of residency, family size, farm size, family occupation, family income, agriculture preference sector, and career preference did not show any significant relationship with perception.