Training Needs of Maize Farmers in Rajouri District of Jammu and Kashmir

Training has become a critical input especially in view of the growing sophistication in agricultural technology as well as its cost intensive nature. However, no training programme would bring desirable change in knowledge, skill, attitude and other behavioural components of the farmer unless it is need based. Much can be achieved in the direction of increasing maize production and productivity if the farmers are trained after assessing their level and extent of training needs. The present study was conducted in purposively selected Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir to find out the training needs of maize farmers in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir. There are 9 blocks in Rajouri district, out of which one block namely Rajouri was selected on the basis of maximum area under maize cultivation. From Rajouri block, ten villages were selected on the basis of maximum area under maize cultivation. From each selected village, 12 tribal and 12 non-tribal maize growers were selected randomly. Thus in all, 240 farmers (120 tribal and 120 non-tribal farmers) were included in the sample of the study. The analysis of information collected by personal interview method revealed that 47.50 per cent of respondents had medium level of training needs, whereas 26.66 per cent and 25.84 per cent of respondents had high and low levels of training needs respectively regarding recommended maize production technology. Among the selected 12 recommended practices of maize; respondents had high training need index (TNI) for seed treatment (TNI 94.00), methods of sowing (TNI 89.00), plant protection measures (TNI 84.00), sowing time (TNI 83.00) and manure preparation and application (TNI 79.00) whereas low training need index was observed in irrigation management (TNI 7.00), field preparation (TNI 9.00), harvesting, storage and marketing (TNI 22.00) and weed management (TNI 45.00) respectively. The calculated z-value was greater than its tabulated value at 1 per cent level of significance. It means that there was a significant difference between tribal and non-tribal farmers regarding training needs of recommended maize production technology. Age, education, size of land holding, extension personnel contact, participation in extension programme and mass media exposure of the respondents were found to be positive and significantly correlated with training needs of the maize growers. There is a considerable scope for enhancing the production of maize subject to the need based training imparted to the growers so that they could reap the benefits by adopting the improved package of practices.