Assessment of Awareness Among Women Engaged in Floriculture: A Case Study of Dinapur Village in Chiraigaon Block, Varanasi

AbstractWoman plays a significant and crucial role in agricultural development, livestock production, horticulture, and floriculture post-harvest operation, agro-social forestry and fisheries etc. as a manager, decision maker and skilled farm worker from preparatory stage to harvesting, storage and marketing of the flowers. The study was conducted in 2020 in Dinapur village, Chiraigaon block, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, focusing on Self-Help Group women involved in floriculture activities. The aim was to assess the awareness of these women regarding floriculture-related activities across three dimensions: production, processing, and marketing of flowers. Data were collected from 150 women respondents using a random sampling method, facilitated by a pretested interview schedule and an ex-post-facto research design. Majority of the respondents (74.00%) had high level of awareness followed by medium (18.00%) and low (8.00%) level of awareness in Production, Processing and Marketing of flowers. It was also found that age and family size had negative and significant relationship with awareness of women in floricultural activities at 0.05 level of significance while education have negative and socio-political participation Information utilization pattern have positive and significant relationship awareness of women in floricultural activities at 0.01 level of significance. In case of regression model revealed that Socio political participation, Information utiization pattern, Age, Family Size contributed 22.22 per cent of total of variance in Production, Processing and Marketing of flowers. So, awareness among Women engaged in floriculture activities help in improvement of Production, Processing and Marketing of flowers.