Assessing the Knowledge Gap of Women Vegetable Growers in Bihar

Abstract

Women take part in almost all the activities related to vegetable production as well as marketing such as purchasing of seeds, sowing of seeds, transplanting, weeding, harvesting and post-harvest operations but due to lack of knowledge, they are straggling behind than the existing international standards of vegetable production. Therefore, the present study was undertaken in Bhagalpur district of Bihar (India) to assess the knowledge gap of 120 women vegetable growers through structured schedule. Findings of the study revealed that knowledge gap was very low in case of recommended practices such as land preparation (58.67%), disease management (58.34%), sowing time of the crops (60.00%), harvesting of vegetable crops (60.00%), weed management (61.67%), seed rate (68.34%) and very high in case of agronomical practices (83.33%), irrigation management (75.00%), fertilizer management (71.67%) and insect pest management (71.66%). It was also noted that seven variables were found statistically correlated with the knowledge gap of vegetable production technology. out of seven correlated variables, four variables such as farming experience, contact with extension personnel in public and private sector and social participation were found to be highly significant at 0.001 level of probability and three variables such as education, overall annual income and annual income from vegetable farming were found to be highly significant at 0.005 level of probability. The variables age and land holding had positive but both variables were found to be non-significant. Therefore, it was concluded that there is a high need of increasing their knowledge level as well as skills about the production of vegetables.