1Department of Agricultural Extension Education, College of Agriculture, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar-751 003, Odisha, India
2Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Balasore-756 040, Odisha, India
3Department of Agriculture and Allied Sciences, C.V. Raman Global University, Bhubaneswar-752 054, Odisha, India
*Corresponding Author: Debi Kalyan Jayasingh, Department of Agricultural Extension Education, College of Agriculture, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar-751 003, Odisha, India, Email: debikalyan1995@gmail.com Orcid: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-9090-0559
Online published on 12 November, 2024.
Growing uncertainties in farm-related endeavours have prompted concerns about the sustainability of farming communities, leading occupational diversification. Farmers were quite perceptive about the advantages of diversification yet they still fail to derive the benefits of it at the optimum extent in the form of the addition to the existing earning levels. That is why, this context pre-requisites of assessing the existing levels of occupational diversification and to determine the issues that ceasing the progress of farmers in the ventures of diversification.
The study was conducted in Khordha district of Odisha state under ex-post facto research design. A sample of 240 farmers was undertaken from eight villages through multi-stage random sampling procedure. Data collection conducted by personal interview with the use of pre-tested semi-structured questionnaires. Simpson's index of diversification for assessing occupational diversification along with Henry Garrett's ranking for grading the constraints faced by farmers were employed in the study.
Majority (47.50%) of the farmers expressed moderate level in terms of extent of occupational diversification. The top ranked constraints under each dimension found to be- shortage of storage facilities (74.77) and marketing facilities (71.34) under infrastructural; absence of innovative technologies (73.55) and lack of market forecasting (70.11) under promotional; lack of proper education (72.23) and less experience on new ventures (70.79) under social; shortage of own resources (69.33) and rising fuel prices (65.33) under economic; erratic rainfall (70.77) and natural disturbances like floods, cyclones, etc. (64.46) under miscellaneous dimension. Therefore, the investigation recommends that the focusing on the solution-oriented approach towards the abovementioned constraints for augmenting occupational diversification.
Activity, Constraints, Diversification, Livelihood, Occupation, Sustainability
