Search

Rural youth play an important role in agriculture and other allied activities, because of their family background in farming can be active partners in various agricultural activities. The study was conducted in the purposively selected Davangere and Haveri districts of Karnataka during 2019-2020 by employing an ex-post facto design. The high percent of full involvement (64.71%) in sericulture was observed in the practices of filling trenches with manures, cleaning of beds and management of different instars of silkworms. In the case of floriculture high percent of full involvement was witnessed in harvesting (67.41%), pest and disease management (61.29%) and packaging and marketing (61.29%). On the other hand, a high percentage of full involvement in livestock farming was seen in the health care of livestock (58.97%) and milking (46.15%). The overall involvement of rural youth revealed that a high level of involvement was noticed in floriculture (58.06%) whereas the involvement in sericulture (47.06%) and livestock farming (46.15%) was noticed at a moderate level. Involvement of youth in sericulture was positively and significantly correlated to land ownership, family type, family support, achievement motivation, deferred gratification, risk orientation, extension contact, mass media exposure and availability of production resources. Whereas involvement of youth in the cultivation of floriculture crops was positively and significantly correlated with education, land ownership, family type, leadership in the family, achievement motivation, mass media exposure, extension contact, cosmopoliteness and availability of production resources. Similarly, the involvement of youth in the cultivation of livestock management was positively significantly related to land ownership, family support, leadership in the family, achievement motivation, extension contact, cosmopoliteness and availability of production resources. The results of multiple regression analysis showed that all the selected 16 characteristics of rural youth put together had contributed to the greater extent in the cultivation of floriculture crops (79.30%) followed by involvement in sericulture (64.50%) and livestock management (62.10%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The agricultural and livestock research, education, and extension are important components for increasing production and meeting the demands of the growing population with sustainability. In this context, knowledge or information is very critical for improving the production under the present extension delivery system in India. Several studies have highlighted emerging ICTs which have the potential to reach the mass population at a limited time despite traditional media. One such emerging ICT is Social Media, which is utilized by most of the stakeholders, including farmers around the globe. Hence, for documenting its application for livestock information needs among the livestock farmers, an ex-post-facto exploratory study was conducted in Southern Karnataka using 108 purposively selected farmers, which comprised of 36 farmers each belonging to dairy, poultry and sheep and goat husbandry with pre-tested structured interview schedule. Majority of the farmers in each category were aware about social media and possessed social media accounts with highest number of WhatsApp accounts being possessed by the farmers. Social media was utilized for obtaining information about latest livestock production and management practices in all the categories. From these findings, it could be elucidated that the respondents predominantly perceived that social media had higher benefits in attaining livestock related information and adoption of digital knowledge into practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]