Vol. 11, Special Issue 8 (2022)

Author(s):
Vignesh Kumar S and PP Murugan

Abstract:
The past decade witnessed many disasters, especially with the cyclones wreaking havoc in agriculture. Severe cyclonic storm Gaja destroyed lakhs of coconut trees in the Delta region of Tamil Nadu. The need for identifying and understanding the Socio-Economic and Psychological characteristics of the affected coconut growers was clearly evident and was and taken up for the study. A sample of 211 farmers selected based on Proportionate Random Sampling method in Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu, were interviewed for the study. A set of twenty-two variables were considered for the study based on opinion from expert judges and pilot study. Considering the Socio-Economic and personal characteristics, majority of the respondents were old aged, had exposure to school education at the least, carried out farming as their sole occupation, while possessing medium to high experience in farming and coconut cultivation. There existed a significant difference between the farm size and the area under Coconut cultivation. Majority of the respondents lived in tiled and terraced houses while three fourth of them had medium level of annual income. Regarding the communication characteristics, more than half of the had medium information seeking behaviour, while social participation was found to low. Psychological characteristics such as fatalism, innovativeness and economic motivation was found to be medium among more than half of the respondents. This study involving the Socio-Economic and Psychological characteristics yielded a vast range of findings, sufficient enough to understand the background of the coconut growers affected by the Gaja cyclone.