Constraints and Factors Association with Food Processing Training as Perceived by Scheduled Caste Women

Abstract

The food processing world is highly fragmented as it widely comprises of the sub segment like fruit and vegetables preservation, pickling of seasonal vegetables, milk and milk products, baking. The present study was an attempt to find out the extent of adoption of food processing and preservation techniques were being followed by the rural women. The present study was conducted in seven villages of Haryana State on 104 women respondents who already received training on food processing covered under the project were selected purposively. The overall findings of the study indicated that the respondents were under social constraints and had no time for attending village functions. In technical constraints, lack of difficult technique (1.35 MS) was perceived as main constraint. Under social and personal constraints, storage of time (1.85 MS) was observed as main constraint of the respondents. Under economic constraint, lack of finance (1.88 MS) for the purchase of raw material was observed as main constraint faced by the respondents. In case of psychological variables, majority of the respondents were in the medium level of change proneness (56.73%) and risk orientation (44.23%). While in case of entrepreneurial motivation, majority of the respondents were in high level of entrepreneurial motivation (48.08) followed by medium and low levels. In communication variables, majority of the respondents (51.92%) had utilized medium level of localite sources followed by low level of cosmopolite source (51.92%) and mass media source (45.19%). It can be inferred from the results that personal variables like family type and family size, economic variable including income of the family had significant association with knowledge, attitude and skill acquisition of the respondents for training on food processing. Among psychological variables entrepreneurial motivation and risk orientation had significant association with knowledge of the respondents. Locality sources were found to have significant impact with knowledge, attitude and skill acquisition on food processing training.