Knowledge Level of Vegetable Growers and Its Factors

This study was conducted in the Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh to ascertain the level of knowledge possessed by vegetable growers and determining the factors influencing it. A multistage simple random sampling technique was followed, to draw a sample of 125 vegetable growers proportionately from 15 villages of three community development blocks. Knowledge level of the respondents was measured, with the help of a highly valid and reliable knowledge test. The sum of scores of all the items on knowledge test was considered as the knowledge score of the respondent about scientific vegetable cultivation, which was converted into a knowledge index. Results indicate that 38.40 percent vegetable growers possessed medium level of overall knowledge about scientific vegetable cultivation, whereas 32 and 29.60 percent respondents had high and low knowledge level, respectively. However, the highest Mean Knowledge Index was observed with respect to agronomic practices (59.07%) and ranked first, followed by application of manure and fertilizers (44.59%) and improved varieties (37.07%), which were ranked second and third, respectively. In case of nursery raising and harvesting of vegetable crops, the mean knowledge indices were observed to be 33.71 and 27.73 percent, and secured fourth and fifth rank, respectively. Insect–pest (27.56%) and disease management (27.37%) had secured last two ranks, respectively. Furthermore, step-wise regression analysis showed that five independent variables viz. family education status (X₃), income from agriculture (X₉), extension contact (X₁₀), innovativeness (X₁₄) and scientific orientation (X₁₅) could explain 68.58 percent of the variation. Furthermore, the contribution of individual variable to the total R² showed that the most important contributor was scientific orientation (25.93%) followed by innovativeness (18.10%), income from agriculture (13.14%) and extension contact (9.17%). The least contributor was found to be family education status (2.23%).