Entrepreneurial behavior of rural women farmers in dairying: a multidimensional analysis

B Subrahmanyeswari, K Veeraraghava Reddy and B Sudhakar Rao

Department of Veterinary and AH.Extension, NTR college of Veterinary Science, Gananvaram-521 102 (AP) - India
on Study leave for PhD at IVRI, Izatnagar - 243122. Bareilly (UP), India
ANGRAU, Hyderabad-30
Rajendranagar, Hyderabad-30
subramext@gmail.com
(Part of MVSc research work by the first author)

Abstract

This study was conducted by following ex-post facto research design and random sampling technique in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh. A total of 120 respondents comprising of 61 small, 35 medium and 24 large rural women farmers in dairying were selected by proportionate random sampling technique.

The results revealed that majority of the dairywomen farmers possessed medium entrepreneurial behavior and variation among the three categories of the respondents was found to be significant (P<0.01). Entrepreneurial behavior was positively and significantly related with land holding (P<0.01), material possession (P<0.01), management orientation (P<0.01), value orientation (P<0.01), income from dairy farming (P<0.01), education (P<0.05) and innovativeness (P<0.05). Most of the variation in entrepreneurial behavior was explained by the variables namely dairy farming experience, social participation, training received and income from dairy farming.

Key words: Contributory factors, entrepreneurial behavior levels, rural dairywomen farmers

Introduction

"Just as a bird couldn't fly with its one wing only,
a nation could not march forward if the women are left behind.
India has a tradition of women playing important role
in the advancement of civilization"

Swami Vivekananda

The women folk can easily be considered as backbone of any nation and better half of the men in almost all spheres of community development, of which India is not an exception. Rural women, who constitute about 50 % of total rural population, play an active role in all spheres of economic life and contribute richly towards national income. Of the major rural enterprises, dairy enterprise has been regarded as an important instrument of economic and social change to supplement the income and employment to the rural sector in general and rural women in particular.

The government of India report indicates that 85 per cent of rural women are engaged in livestock production (Viswanathan 1989). Various micro level studies highlight women's significant role in dairy production (Waghmare and Chaudari 1989; Jain and Verma 1992; Prakash Singh et al 2005). The future of dairy industry lies in regenerating the local ecology with maximum participation of women entrepreneurs. Unemployment still continues to be the most baffling problem in India, despite its rapid social and technological progress and increase in the level of literacy, where the question of women entrepreneurship assuming its significance. Entrepreneurship is a form of human resource and entrepreneurial behavior depends on a number of factors like skill, knowledge of the enterprise, risk taking ability, achievement motivation, exposure to mass media, trainings received, and moreover, with innovativeness of the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial behavior can be attributed as the change in knowledge, skills and attitude of entrepreneurs in the enterprise they have taken up. In Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, majority of rural women are actively involved in dairy enterprise through women dairy cooperatives. The present study was undertaken with specific objective to study the entrepreneurial behavior of rural women farmers involved in dairying, the factors contributing towards entrepreneurial behavior and its association with their personal and socio-economic traits.

Materials and methods

The study was conducted in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh. Six villages from three mandals were randomly selected and a total of 120 dairywomen farmers were selected by proportionate random sampling method from three categories based on their milch cattle possession (Reddy 1996). Thus 61 small farmers (with 1 milch cattle), 35 medium farmers (2-3 milch Cattle) and 24 large farmers (3 and above) were taken as respondents. The data was collected through personal interview and was analyzed by using suitable statistical techniques. Dairy entrepreneurial behavior index was constituted with eight components selected out of 15 components, basing on weighted mean score as per experts' ratings i.e. subject matter specialists from Livestock Production Management and Veterinary Extension (Table 1).

Table 1. Selection of the components for the study by weighted mean method
S.No	Components	Weighted mean score
1.	Innovativeness	2.80*
2.	Risk Orientation	2.74*
3.	Decision making ability	2.44*
4.	Achievement motivation	2.54*
5.	Information seeking behavior	2.48*
6.	Knowledge of the enterprise	2.80*
7.	Utilization of assistance	2.02
8.	Cosmopolitness	1.92
9.	Market orientation	2.04
10.	Result orientedness	2.28
11.	Managerial assistance	2.08
12.	Ability to coordinate activities	2.14
13.	Leadership ability	2.14
14.	Self confidence	2.77*
15.	Scientific orientation	2.44*
* Components selected for the study (weighted mean score equal or above 2.40)

Constitution of entrepreneurial behavior index

After careful perusal of relevant literature and intensive consultation with the experts in the field of livestock production, veterinary extension resulted in 15 components which are normally considered as components in entrepreneurial behavior were listed out. Out of these 15 components, eight components were identified as most relevant to constitute entrepreneurial behavior index through weighted mean score method given by 35 judges out of 40 judges from livestock production and veterinary extension from different universities through mailed questionnaire as following:

Thus, an entrepreneurial behavior index was constituted with eight components i.e. 'innovativeness, self confidence, risk orientation, achievement motivation, information seeking behavior, scientific orientation, knowledge level of dairy farming activities and decision making ability' to measure the level of entrepreneurial behavior among the three categories of dairywomen farmers.

Results and discussion

Socio-economic profile of dairywomen farmers

Most of the dairywomen farmers among the three categories were with medium level of social participation, whereas, very few of them had high level of training ( Fulzele and Meena 1994 ; Bhatt 1995). (Table 2).

Table 2. Socio-economic characteristics of dairywomen farmers
S.No	Character	Level	Category of dairywomen farmers
S.No	Character	Level	Small, F %	Medium, F %	Large, F %
1.	Social participation	Low	3 (5.00)	4 (11.0)	3 (12.5)
		Medium	51 (83.5)	25 (71.0)	16 (66.5)
		High	7 (11.5)	6 (18.0)	5 (21.0)
2.	Training received	Low	27 (44.0)	15 (43.0)	11 (46.0)
		Medium	19 (31.5)	10 (28.5)	9 (37.5)
		High	15 (24.5)	10 (28.5)	4 (16.5)
3.	Land holding	Low	32 (52.8)	11 (31.4)	9 (36.0)
		Medium	25 (41.7)	19 (54.3)	12 (50.0)
		High	4 (5.55)	5 (14.3)	3 (14.0)
4.	Dairy income	Low	36 (59.0)	7 (20.0)	5 (21.0)
		Medium	21 (34.5)	18 (51.5)	7 (29.0)
		High	4 (6.50)	10 (28.5)	12 (50.0)

Psychological profile of dairywomen farmers

Majority of the dairywomen farmers (table 3) were with medium level of value orientation as well as management orientation which might be due to their experience in dairy farming and medium level of social participation (Reddy 1995).

Table 3. Psychological characteristics of dairywomen farmers
S.No	Character	Level	Category of dairywomen farmers
S.No	Character	Level	Small, F %	Medium, F %	Large, F %
1.	Management orientation	Low	11 (18.0)	6 (17.0)	3 (12.5)
		Medium	47 (77.0)	22 (63.0)	14 (58.5)
		High	3 (5.00)	7 (20.0)	7 (29.0)
2.	Value orientation	Low	14 (23.0)	5 (14.0)	4 (16.5)
		Medium	36 (59.0)	21 (60.0)	12 (50.0)
		High	11 (18.0)	9 (26.0)	8 (33.5)
3.	Adoption of dairy practices	Low	16 (26.0)	11 (31.5)	6 (25.0)
	Adoption of dairy practices	Medium	32 (53.0)	18 (51.5)	8 (33.0)
		High	13 (21.0)	6 (17.0)	10 (42.0)

Dairywomen farmers could able to adopt dairy production practices only to some extent; the reason might be due to their religious beliefs and continuation of traditional practices (Goswami et al 2000)

Levels of entrepreneurial behavior among the three categories of rural dairywomen farmers

It is evident from table 4, that most of rural dairywomen farmers were found to have medium level (50.00 %) of entrepreneurial behavior followed by high (29.00%) and low (21.00%) levels of entrepreneurial behavior.

Table 4. Levels among three categories of rural dairywomen farmers
S. No	Category	Small, F %	Medium, F %	Large, F %	Total F %
1.	Low	16 (26.0)	4(11.0)	5 (21.0)	25 (21.0)
2.	Medium	32(53.0)	22 (63.0)	6 (25.0)	60 (50.0)
3.	Large	13 (21.0)	9 (26.00	13 (54.0)	35 (29.0)
	Total	61 (100.0)	35 (100)	24 (100)	120 (100)
Mean = 146.40 S.D= 21.43

The data further revealed that in case of dairywomen farmers under small category, majority (53.00%) of them had medium entrepreneurial behavior followed by low level (26.00%). This trend may be due to difference in milch cattle possession, experience in dairy farming, social participation, management orientation and adoption of dairy innovative practices.

Relative contribution of entrepreneurial behavioral components among the three categories of dairywomen farmers

The results indicated (Table 5) that 'achievement motivation' and 'decision making ability' were among the first two ranks, whereas, 'innovativeness' and 'risk taking ability' got the least importance among small and medium dairywomen farmers.

Table 5. Ranking of components according to their relative contribution to entrepreneurial behavior among the dairywomen farmers
S.No	Items	Categories of dairywomen farmers
		Small		Medium		Large
		%	Rank	%	Rank	%	Rank
1.	Self confidence	74.0	III	77.5	III	85.0	I
2.	Decision making ability	74.5	II	78.0	II	82.8	II
3.	Achievement motivation	75.5	I	80.5	I	70.0	VII
4.	Knowledge of the enterprise	71.0	V	73.0	V	81.5	III
5.	Information seeking behavior	71.5	IV	74.0	IV	78.5	IV
6.	Innovativeness	64.5	VII	65.8	VII	74.8	VI
7.	Risk taking ability	60.0	VIII	62.0	VIII	78.0	V
8.	Scientific orientation	65.0	VI	66.5	VI	63.0	VIII

Achievement motivation is the desire or need to excel in reaching a certain goal. Naturally farmers with 1-2 milch cattle and a small land holding will have the desire to extend their farm and to increase their economic levels, which might be the reason for the achievement motivation being occupied first position out of eight components. Farmers with good rational decision making ability naturally possess more self confidence, but it appears that limited income and resources of small and medium farmers might be acting as a limiting factor keeping the self confidence in the 3^rd position.

Low level of literacy, limited participation in social activities and moreover, lack of awareness about different information sources availability and their utilization, small herd size and limited financial status might have constrained them hence, as such showing the positions of information seeking behavior (IV), scientific orientation (VI) and innovativeness (VII). Small and medium category farmers could not venture to take risks for the fear of incurring losses in their enterprise, which might be the reason for the component 'risk taking ability' to be in the last position of its relative contribution towards entrepreneurial behavior.

Among the category of large dairywomen farmers, self confidence (I), was contributing most towards their entrepreneurial behavior, reason being they were with good herd size, land holding and income and they naturally have resourcefulness in carrying out any activity with much self confidence. Decision making ability was at 2^nd position, as the large dairy farmers by virtue of their large size units and sound financial position could venture and act immediately by taking quick decisions. Education coupled with experience participation in social activities and contact with external sources of information might have made them knowledgeable in dairy enterprise which greatly contributed to their entrepreneurial behavior. Large dairywomen farmers could venture to take risks and can withstand uncertainties of risks taken as compared to small and medium categories of dairywomen farmers. These dairywomen farmers might have developed passive attitude towards the technology generated due to dissatisfaction with the technologies adopted earlier with the result being the attributes innovativeness and scientific orientation ( VI and VIII positions) contributing little towards their entrepreneurial behavior.

Difference in the levels of Entrepreneurial behavior among three categories of rural dairywomen farmers by means of Analysis of Variance,'t' test and Critical difference

The analysis of variance and 't' test values depicted in table 6, 7 and 8 showed that the 'F' values among the three categories of dairywomen farmers and 't' values and C.D values between any two groups were significant (p<0.01).

Table 6. Analysis of variance
Source of variation	Df	Sum of squares	Mean squares	F values
Between groups	2	45963.19	22981.59	308.68**
With in groups	117	8710.75	74.45
Total	119	54673.95
** Significant at 0.01 level

Table 7. ‘t’ values
S.No	Mean		‘t’ values
1.	Small farmers 131	Medium farmers 149	10.10**
2.	Small farmers 131	Large farmers 182	28.57**
3.	Medium farmers 149	Large farmers 182	14.24**
** Significant at 0.01 level

Table 8. Critical difference (CD)
S.No	Mean		C.D values
1.	Small farmers 131	Medium farmers 149	18.83**
2.	Small farmers 131	Large farmers 182	51.40**
3.	Medium farmers 149	Large farmers 182	32.57**
** Significant at 0.01 level

Based on this, it could be inferred that three categories of dairywomen farmers differed significantly with respect to their entrepreneurial behavior. These findings are in line with the findings of Goud (1990) and Gopalakrishna Rao (1985). This might be due to different farm sizes, which is an important factor in providing impetus to dairy farmers to produce more, since in large dairy farms production, profit maximization as well as introduction of technological changes and innovations are possible and moreover, the three categories of dairywomen farmers were also differing in terms of their self confidence, information seeking behavior, and innovativeness which are predisposing factors of entrepreneurial behavior.

Relationship and contributory factors of socio-economic and psychological variables of rural dairywomen farmers towards Entrepreneurial Behavior by means of correlation and regression analysis

Small and medium farmers with small herd size might have concentrated more on dairy farming activities and rely more on their experience to do their job successfully with a good entrepreneurial behavior. Social participation and value orientation and might have enabled large and medium dairywomen farmers respectively and training in case of small category dairywomen farmers to access to a number of information sources to become richer in knowledge and skills thereby better entrepreneurial behavior.

Land holding found to have negative significance with the entrepreneurial behavior ( table 9) reason might be that farmers with small land holdings were able to concentrate more on dairy enterprise to meet their family requirements as well as to increase their socio-economic status.

Table 9. Relationship between personal, socio-economic and psychological variables and entrepreneurial behavior of rural women dairy farmers (N=120)
S.No	Variable	Correlation coefficient			Over all
		Category of rural dairywomen
		Small N=61	Medium N=35	Large N=24
1.	Age	0.06	0.06	0.10	0.03
2.	Dairy farming experience	0.26*	0.34*	0.46	0.03
3.	Education	0.15	0.04	0.42*	0.20*
4.	Social participation	0.08	0.06	0.49*	0.17
5.	Land holding	-0.34**	0.09	-0.46*	0.34
6.	Material possession	0.18	0.17	0.25	0.32**
7.	Management orientation	0.26*	0.37*	0.62**	0.30**
8.	Value orientation	0.04	0.62**	0.24	0.42**
9.	Training received	0.27*	0.02	0.22	0.01
10.	Dairy income	0.01	0.16	0.69**	0.74**
11.	Adoption of dairy practices	0.04	0.02	0.06	0.24
*Significant at <0.01 Significant < 0.05

Management orientation is nothing but scientific dairy farm management with planning, production and marketing as its major functions. Naturally farmers with good management orientation show a related entrepreneurial behavior only.

Table 10. Multiple linear regression analysis of personal socio-economic characteristics with entrepreneurial behavior of rural women dairy farmers (N=120)
S.No.	Variable	Category of rural women farmers
		Small		Medium		Large		Over all
		b_i	t	b_i	t	b_i	t	b_i	t
1.	Age	0.22	1.24	0.66	2.93*	0.06	0.39	0.03	0.16
2.	Dairy farming experience	0.08	2.47*	0.59	1.91	0.08	0.35	0.10	2.53*
3.	Education	1.70	1.72	0.74	0.87	0.22	0.31	0.36	0.38
4.	Social participation	0.35	0.16	6.34	2.77*	0.00	0.01	3.23	2.78*
5.	Land holding	0.41	0.26	1.48	1.48	0.12	0.23	0.48	0.48
6.	Material possession	0.12	0.66	0.07	0.49	0.07	0.88	0.08	0.58
7.	Management orientation	0.03	2.68*	0.27	0.89	0.05	2.26*	0.55	1.51
8.	Value orientation	0.02	0.04	1.79	2.77*	0.45	1.61	0.87	1.77
9.	Training received	0.14	2.25*	0.02	0.21	0.00	0.03	0.05	2.67*
10.	Dairy income	0.00	0.16	0.00	2.14*	0.00	2.36*	0.00	3.89*
11.	Adoption of dairy practices	0.10	0.34	0.18	0.78	0.12	0.51	0.31	1.20
		R²= 0.53 R=0.7		R²=0.62 R=0.78		R²=0.63 R=0.79		R²=0.61 R=0.78
*Significant at <0.05 level

The data presented in table 10, suggest that the variables namely experience in dairy farming, social participation, management orientation, training received in dairying, value orientation and income from dairying were found to be the chief contributory factors towards entrepreneurial behavior of dairywomen farmers to the extent of 61 per cent.

Conclusions

Based on the findings it is suggested that, it is endeavor of all those departments like animal husbandry, extension agencies and other non-governmental organizations who are involved in promoting dairy enterprise and rural women farmers to give more emphasis on women education and social participation to make them more aware of day to day technological developments and the impact of adoption of those scientific practices on their enterprises and livelihood, through mass awareness campaigns on a large scale which in turn makes them more knowledgeable and there by better entrepreneurial behavior.
The extension agencies should concentrate more on contributing factors as revealed by the study i.e. social participation, management orientation, value orientation and role of training in dairying and also aim at manipulating these variables to their great advantage, for promoting entrepreneurial behavior among the dairywomen farmers.

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