Vol. 10, Special Issue 9 (2021)

Author(s):
Amit Kumar, Syed H Mazhar, Dr. Jahanara

Abstract:
Horticulture is a specialized branch of agriculture and constitutes a significant component of the total agricultural produce in India. In recent years, greater attention is being paid to horticulture for better utilization and development of waste lands, which are not suitable for economic cultivation of field crops. Papaya (Carica papaya) fruit is very popular with the farmers in general because it requires less area per plant, comes to fruiting in a year, easy to cultivate and provides more income per hectare. It is one of the highest producers of fruits per ha. India leads the world in papaya production with an annual output of about 4.958 million tons and area covered by 0.118 million ha. Bihar is the 13^th rank in papaya production figure almost 0.044 million tons in an area of 2000 ha. In Bihar papaya is mainly grown in Vaishali, Samastipur, Begusarai, Patna and Muzaffarpur district. As of today, there is few research studies conducted in area of knowledge and adoption level finding of papaya growers in improved papaya production technology in different parts of the country and in Bihar only one such study could be traced. But there is no such study available in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar. Muzaffarpur district comprises of 16 blocks out of which only one block, namely Sakra was selected purposively on the basis of maximum area under papaya cultivation and having maximum number of papaya growers. Six villages (Gauri har khalik nagar, Sarmastpur, Ghanipur Bejha, Majhaulia and Katesar) were selected randomly and considered for study on the basis of larger area coverage. A list of papaya growers of each selected village was prepared with the help of DHO, Muzaffarpur. Twenty papaya growers were taken from each selected villages. Thus, a total number of 120 papaya growers were constituted as the sample for the study. The primary data collected through the interview schedule is represented in the form of Tables. The tables are analyzed with the percentages, so as to make analytical study and also help for comparison of different kinds of the data. The socio-economic conditions and demographical characteristics of papaya growers should be kept in mind while designing the effective training programmes. The papaya growers needed to properly aware and extension professionals should conduct many demonstrations and field visits and make the papaya growers to adopt the improved papaya production technology.