ATTITUDE OF BANANA FARMERS TOWARDS CONTRACT FARMING IN SOUTH GUJARAT, INDIA

Contract farming is seen as a way to raise small-farm income by delivering technology and market information to farmers, incorporating them into remunerative new markets. The study was conducted in Narmada and Bharuch districts of South Gujarat with 30 banana contract farmers with the objective to assess their attitude regarding the contract system and its relationship with demographic variables. The study showed that the 6.67 per cent farmers have highly favourable attitude towards contract farming. Majority of respondents (76.67 per cent) have favourable attitude towards contract farming. Farmers agreed that contracting gives them better access to modern inputs, improves and encourages quality production and is a real boon to small farmers. However, farmers did not consider contract farming as the only best way to join farmers with markets and also disagreed that contract farming increases their awareness about consumer preferences. Attitude of farmers towards contract farming was found to be significantly negatively correlated with age and number of years in contract farming, while it was found to be positively correlated with the total landholdings and land under contract farming. The overall findings of the study strongly suggest the need for promoting the participation of small farmers in contract farming.