Vol. 10, Issue 4 (2021)

Author(s):
S Naveen Kumar, P Gidda Reddy and R Ratnakar

Abstract:
Pluralism in agricultural extension services was studied in Andhra Pradesh state by using exploratory and descriptive research design. The Andhra Pradesh state was purposively selected for the study due to it is one of the important agricultural state in the country and many extension service providers are the stakeholders in the process of agricultural development. At the same time the findings of the study might be useful not only policy makers of Andhra Pradesh but also various agricultural extension service providers. All the middle, bottom and field level three categories of private extension service providers (Sales Executives/Sales officers, Sales Trainees and Field staff) were selected because these functionaries were responsible for doing extension activities at field level and covering the selected four villages in each district were selected purposively. From each company, three level extension officials were selected from each district, thus making a total of 45 for all the five private input companies from all three districts. The selected private input companies were; TATA Rallis India Ltd., Syngenta India Ltd., Indofil Chemicals Ltd., Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals Ltd., and Monsanto India Ltd., The results explored that most of the respondents of private extension service providers were found to be in the high category regarding cropping pattern activities (55.6%) and extension activities (53.3%). Majority of the respondents were found to be in medium category related to organizational activities (88.9%), agronomical activities (71.1%) and input activities (55.6%). All the respondents (100%) were found to be in the low category for watershed approach followed by fifty three percent of respondents were distributed in to low category regarding market intelligence. Results had been denoted that most of the time private extension service providers emphasized on production aspects such as; Organizational activities, agronomical practices, cropping pattern and extension activities like trainings, products promotions, result and method demonstrations, field trials, field days, exposure visits etc. than the watershed approaches, market led extension activities like; providing information on market intelligence were least prioritized.