Impact of vocational training programme on mushroom cultivation under the project Attracting and Retaining Youth in Agriculture (ARYA)

The present study was conducted to assess the impact of training on knowledge gain about mushroom cultivation as an enterprise/self-employment. A training on mushroom cultivation under the project Attracting and Retaining Youth in Agriculture (ARYA) was imparted to 60 trainees who had attended three training courses from 2019-2020 to 2021-22. The impact of the training was assessed by pre- and post-evaluation testing in terms of improvement in knowledge on different aspects. Of the total respondents, 90.00 per cent were males; 58.33 per cent were in the age group of 31-40 years; 71.67 were from backward class, mainly senior secondary (35.00%), majority (58.33%) engaged in farming, 80.00 per cent having low annual income, 96.67 per cent having low experience in mushroom cultivation and 76.67 per cent having marginal landholding (<1 ha). It was found that majority (63.33%) of the respondents joined training programme to adopt mushroom growing as an occupation. The gain in knowledge of the trainees from pre-training to post-training ranged from 28.33 to 60.00 per cent. Majority of the respondents (91.67%) suggested that quality spawn may be supplied to them in time. Results also revealed that most of the beneficiaries were found to be satisfied with almost all parameters of training after post-evaluation test of training.