CONTRACT FARMING AND ASSOCIATED PERCEIVED SOCIO-ECONOMIC REPERCUSSIONS: EVIDENCE FROM THE NORTHERN PART OF WEST BENGAL

This paper attempts to analyse the intra and inter-level relationships between the socio-economic profile of contract farmers and their perceived repercussions on employment generation and poverty reduction in the district of Coochbehar of West Bengal. An ex-post-facto research design has been taken in this study, and the data have been obtained from a hundred potato contract farmers as respondents from across ten villages through a purposive multistage random sampling method. In this study, the relationship between the nineteen predictor variables and the predicted variable- ‘perceived repercussions of contract farming on employment generation and poverty reduction have been analysed by some statistical tools such as Karl Pearson’s coefficient of correlation and multiple linear regression analysis. The results indicated that variables such as age (r = 00.221, p < 00.05), contract farming experience (r = 00.445, p < 00.01), personal possession (r = 00.205, p < 00.05), communication skills (r = 00.281, p < 00.01), and extension contact (r = 00.210, p < 00.05) were positively associated with the perceived repercussions. On the other hand, variables like annual family expenditure (β = -00.334, p < 0.05) and innovation proneness (β = -00.249, p < 00.05) had negative and contract farming experience (β = 00.482, p < 0.05) and communication skills (β = 00.311, p < 0.05) had positively contributed in case of characterizing the perceived repercussions of contract farming. The contract farming experience emerged as the strongest predictor, explaining 48.20% of the variations embedded with perceived repercussions of contract farming. These findings suggest that contract farming, particularly with increased experience and access to information, can be a viable pathway for improving livelihoods in the region.