Socioeconomic characteristics and varietal preferences of groundnut growers in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra

The efforts were made to study the selected personal and socioeconomic characteristics of the groundnut growers and their preferences for different varieties in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra. Karveer Hatkanangale and Gadhinglaj Tehsils were selected for the study on the basis of maximum area under groundnut. Proportionate random sampling procedure was adopted and thus 120 respondents were selected from 12 villages. The study noticed that majority of the respondents were from middle age group of 32 to 59 years (60.00%) and secondary level of education (28.34%); 65.00 per cent respondents had medium size of family (4 to 7 members), medium usage of sources of information (60.84%), small size of landholding (44.16%), medium farming experience (55.83%) and medium annual income (67.50%). Majority of the respondents had medium cropping intensity (65.00%), always used Gramsevak as formal personal source of information (89.16%) and used TV among the mass media sources of information (72.50%). It was also found that majority of the farmers followed groundnut-wheat-groundnut and groundnut-sorghum-groundnut cropping patterns in their fields. Phule Pragati variety of groundnut was noticed as highly preferred for oilcake by the growers.