Training Needs – An Analysis in Dryland Farming System with Gender Perspectives

Introduction

In India, dryland are typically characterized by low annual rainfall (300-750 mm per annum) and higher potential evapotranspiration (PET). In India, 68% of the total net sown area comes under dry land cultivation, spread over 177 districts. Most dry land areas in India have more than 7 months rainless period with essentially no or very little precipitation. In certain areas the total annual rainfall does not exceed 500 mm.¹ Crop production, consequently, in such areas is primarily rainfed as there is no facility to give any irrigation, and even protective or life saving irrigation is often difficult. The dryland areas of the country account for as much as 48% of the area under food crop cultivation and 52% under non-food crop cultivation and contribute to about 42% of the total food grain production and are generally dominated by low value and low yield crops which extremely influencing the socio economic status of the farmers.² The farmers in the dryland go for different cropping or different adoption and mitigation practices.³ Dryland agriculture is an area having less than 750mm rainfall, dryland have an immense scientific, economic and social value but faced with the twin problems of climatic instability and low productivity. They are the habitat and sources of livelihood for about one-quarter of the earth’s population. It is estimated that these ecosystems cover one-third of the earth total land surface and about half of this area is economically productive.⁴

Dryland support approximately 50.00 per cent of the world’s livestock and also provide forage for wildlife.⁵ Investment to increase production in dryland has been limited, at least in part due to the popular misconception that dryland are empty, barren places.² Although resource are abundance farmer still felt empty in status, so this study aim to investigate the training need of the farmers both male and female farmers in dryland farming system.

Methodology

Tiruppur district of Tamil Nadu was purposively selected for study because it is one of the districts where the percentage of rainfall is merely low for past ten years. Pongalur, Palladam, Kundadam blocks were selected based on the highest unirrigated area. Based on this, thirty farm women and thirty farm men holding land from each block was selected and comprises total sample size of 180.

Data collection was done with the use of a semi -structured and pre-tested interview schedule. The data were collected by personally interviewing the respondents. Necessary effort was made to check and cross check the data collected from the respondents. Expost facto research design was employed in study. The statistical tool used in this study percentage analysis to employ simple correlation over result.

Result and Discussion

The training need of farmers was analysed and tabulated for discussion as fallows

Table 1: Training Need Analysis.

Training preferred

Training was preferred by 75.44 per cent of respondents, the remaining 25.56 per cent un preferred respondents were contacted before organizing training and told the importance and made them realize their unfelt needs and finally made them to participate in training. In total respondents, there prevailed absentees of four respondents because still they were unaware of their felt needs and due to some other personal constraints. The literate respondents were selected in the aspect of filling questionnaire on their own and given training.

Duration of Training Preferred

It could be observed from the table that 88.80 per cent of respondent preferred less than a day of training. The respondents since being pre occupied as farmers, home makers and taking care of children so they would not have much time to spend for other purposes. Spending much time would hinder their routine work, time specific farm operation might be suffered. This was the reason of preference of training by respondents for less than a day.

Month of Training Preferred

From the data available in table it could be realized that there were two different seasons preferred by the respondent based on the standing crop availability in their field i.e. one was during on season and another was off season. The majority of the respondent (88.80%) preferred training in any of the season as they were workless because of unavailability of water caused by drought.

As the respondents were expecting to uplift their livelihood through better technology and due to the unavailability of crop during the season, the respondent preferred any of the season for training. This response indicated their thrust for the new technology.

Preference of Instructor for Training

The orders of preference of respondents training are presented in the table. Village extension agent was sought by the majority of respondents (70.89%).

As village officer often organizes training in villages, he/she might possess better knowledge about the actual field condition and further the respondent could save much of their valuable time or get least interference with their day to day routine affairs which otherwise they would face difficulty with an outsider. With respect to farmwomen, customs prevailing in the society do not seem to permit them to come alone and attend training, if conducted by outsiders. Further, the village atmosphere always encourages farm women to converse freely with the personal localites rather than the outside trainers. Perhaps, the salient features of the training programs might have made the farm women to prefer known trainers more than outsiders.

This finding was in agreement with the earlier finding of 6 who reported that respondents favored peripatetic training more than any other type of institutional training.

Place of Training

The result reveals that 88.80 per cent of respondent preferred training in village itself. The reason for preferring within own village might be due to that they would easily reach the place of training since it was organized within their village. This eliminate the problem of transport, food etc. and also prevailing social values do not very much favor rural women to move further away from home.

This finding was in confirmation with report of 6, 7 who reported farmers are conservatives and prefer own village trainings.

Method of Training

Lecture with discussion was voted as best method for the respondent to acquire knowledge on subject matter.

According to the respondents, lecture method was effective because the respondent can gather in place and listen peacefully about the technology and strengthen their knowledge theoretically and during discussion they can interact with peer farmers and also with the trainer about the subject and get their doubts clarified. This might be the possible reason for selection of this method. The result depicts the same findings of ⁸ who said lecture is very effective mode of training.

Subject Matter Preferred

The respondents were asked with open ended question about the subject they needed to know, the majority (88.80%) of the respondent preferred dryland management technology. This might be because of the continuous drought prevailing in the study area.

Then the respondents were given with practices of dryland technologies which were framed in discussion with the scientist, extension agents and farmers. As a result of that, 19 practices comprising crop, animal husbandry and livestock was selected and asked respondents about particular requirement, where majority of the respondent needed contingency crop planning (52.78%) as the priority subject matter. Contingency crop planning was very effective in managing the drought occurrence and also respondent seems to be less aware of this technology when compared to other dryland technologies.

Acknowledgement

I extend my profound thanks to the UGC- NFOBC Scholarship for Doctoral Studies for financially aiding me to carry out this extensive research on Dryland farming system. I also express my sincere thanks to the chairman and my advisory committee for constant support and guidance.

References

1. Guhathakurta and Rajeevan. Trends in Rainfall Pattern in India.International Jounal Of Climatology. 2008;8(11).
2. Rao, S.C. and Ryan, J. Crop Science Society of America. Symposium on Challenges and Strategies for Dryland Agriculture. Challenges and strategies for dryland agriculture. Crop Science Society of America, Madison, Wis. 2004
3. Anand, K. Study on Critical Analysis on Adoption of Dry Land Technologies, Unpub. M.Sc. (Ag.) Thesis, AC&RI, TNAU, Coimbatore. 2011
4. CCD Secretariat. United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification Africa. Text with Annexes, Geneva. 1997;71.
5. Allen, D.B., F.S. Chapin, S. Diaz, M. Howden, J. Puigdefabregas and M. Stafford Smith. 1996. Rangelands in a Changing Climate. In: Climate Change – Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation of Climate Change – Scientific-Technical Analysis. (eds.) W. T. Watson, M. C. Zinyowera, R. H. Moss and D. J. Dokken. International Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, UK: Anamica. 1995131–158.
6. Sekar, V., M.Muthiah and R.Annamalai. Training Needs of Viticulturists. TamilNadu J.Extn.Edn. 1990;1(2):63-69.
7. Kanani, P.R., S.K.Waghmare and R.L.Shiyani. Training Needs of the Tribal Farmers in Gujarat.Gujarat Agricultural University Res.J. 199217(2):61.
8. Murthy, Chidambra, H.S..Relative Effectiveness of Different Interview Treatments Through Radio on Knowledge of Farmers- An Experimental study.Mysore J.Agric.Sci. 1987;21(4):542.