Livelihood assessment of vegetable growers in the Jammu region and Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

Majority of the Indian farmers (86%) own small and marginal holdings. These small landholding farms are largely family farms contributing about 50 percent of total farm output, ensuring India s food security. The vegetable farmers also predominantly belong to small landholding category, cultivating vegetables on small piece of farm land. The small-scale vegetable production though input (hybrid seeds, fertilizers and pesticides) and labour intensive, is also more remunerative compared to cereal production. Therefore, to assess the status of small-scale vegetable growers of Jammu region and Andhra Pradesh in terms of input use, cultivation practices adopted and livelihood, an empirical study entitled Livelihood assessment of vegetable growers in the Jammu region and Andhra Pradesh was carried out by employing comparative research design. Summer vegetable crops namelybrinjal (Solanummelongena), okra (Abelmoschusesculentus) and tomato (Solanumlycopersicum) were selected because these crops are widely cultivated in both Jammu region and Andhra Pradesh. Multi-stage random sampling technique was employed for drawing a sample of 350 vegetable growers cultivating brinjal, tomato and okra crops (150 from Jammu region and 200 from Andhra Pradesh). The results revealed that 95 percent of the Jammu vegetable growers were having marginal and small landholdings and in Andhra Pradesh the percentage was 60. In Jammu, majority of the vegetable growers knowledge about cultural, mechanical and chemical pest management practices was low, whereas in Andhra Pradesh farmers had medium level of knowledge. The extent of adoption of hybrid seeds ranged between 80-100 percent, except in case of brinjal crop in Andhra Pradesh, where 10 percent had cultivated varieties. The fertilizer use was higher in Andhra Pradesh viz-a-viz Jammu region and the differences were significant at pand#8804;0.05. Pesticide use by mean number of applications (16.2) and volume (a.i) (3.583kg/ha) was highest in brinjal in Andhra Pradesh and lowest in Jammu tomato, 1