GROUP DYNAMICS OF FARMER/COMMUNITY INTEREST GROUPS WORKING UNDER ATMA

Agriculture is the largest unorganized sector in India. Still the farmers never have any vibrant model to organize themselves. In this situation farmers’ organizations have its prime importance. The formation / promotion / mobilization of Farmer Interest Groups (FIGs) / Commodity Interest Groups (CIGs) is one of the main activities of Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA) project. Study was conducted in the six district of South Gujarat, five FIGs / CIGs working under ATMA from each district were selected randomly from the list of FIGs/CIGs. Ten respondents (group members) from each group were selected randomly. Thus, total 300 respondents were interviewed for this study. In the present study, ‘Group Dynamics’ of the FIGs / CIGs members were quantified with the help of an index called ‘Group Dynamics Index (GDI)’. The majority of the members of FIG/CIG are from middle to old age group, having middle school education, living in nuclear family, farming + animal husbandry as main occupation, land holding up to 1 ha., keeping small size of herd, medium level of farming experience, income between Rs. 50,000 to 1 lakh, participated in 2-3 organizations, received two trainings, medium extension contacts, mass media exposure, economic orientation, risk orientation and low market orientation. The members exhibited moderate to strong group dynamics pattern. Highly significant association of 8 identified independent variables found with group dynamics. Stepwise regression shows that 3 variables viz., Economic orientation, Extension contacts and Market orientation have positive maximum effect on Group Dynamics.