A STUDY OF PROFILE CHARACTERISTICS OF SUGARCANE GROWERS ON THEIR CRISIS AWARENESS

In light of the fact that sugarcane, despite playing a significant role in the agro economy of the country, facing a decline in both area and production as the crop is being affected highly due to various crisis like natural vagaries, low price, low sugar content etc in the recent past. Thus, it’s important that sugarcane growers are well aware and leaned about these crises. The present study is done to find out the correlation and effect of various profile characteristics of the sugarcane growers with heir crisis awareness, as profile characteristics of an individual are believed to have an impact on his awareness, perception etc using path analysis. The study was conducted in Mandya and Mysore districts of Karnataka, selected purposively. Two talukas from each district, two villages from each taluka and 15 farmers from each village were randomly selected. Randomly, 120 respondents were taken. Data was collected with structured interview schedule through personal interviews method. Path analysis was used as statistical tool to analyse the data. Software namely OPSTAT, MS Excel and SPSS were used to draw conclusion. The study revealed that the independent variables like annual income, scientific orientation and land holding of sugarcane growers were the key variables in exerting considerable direct, indirect and substantial effect on the dependent variable crisis awareness among the sugarcane growers. Annual income and scientific orientation are positively and significantly related with crisis awareness at one per cent significance level whereas age is positively significant with the crisis awareness at five per cent significance level.