Agri-entrepreneur's awareness on government schemes

Agriculture plays a significant part in the Indian economy and therefore entrepreneurship in agriculture holds great potential for the development of the country. The study was done in Kottayam district in Kerala state. Apurposive sampling technique was used. Entrepreneurs with more than three years’ experience were selected. These entrepreneurs were grouped into four sectors, i.e., value addition, fisheries, animal husbandry and other enterprises. For each group 100 respondents were identified. The data were collected through telephonic interview using a pre-structured interview schedule. Data analysis was done by SPSS 20.0. Descriptive statistics were used to describe and summarize the properties of the mass of data. To test the hypothesis that two attributes are associated or not, the Chi-square test for independence was applied. Out of the total 400 agri-entrepreneurs, majority of them (68%) were found to be self-reliant agrientrepreneurs and the remaining (32%) belonged to government-reliant entrepreneurs. Nearly 94.1% of self-reliant agri-entrepreneurs and 71.9% of government-assisted agri-entrepreneurs were unaware of the schemes of assistance launched by Government of India. Agrientrepreneurs’ awareness about various schemes of assistance launched by the Government of India differs. There exists a difference in the opinion among the agri-entrepreneurs regarding the reasons for not availing the schemes launched by the government.