Jagat Jyoti Baruah, Pallabi Bora, Pallabi Das and Sayanika Borah
College of Agriculture, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, Assam
pallabi.bora@aau.ac.in
The present study was conducted in Lakhimpur district of Assam with the objective to study the problems experienced by the Muga rearers in Muga cultivation practices and their suggestive measures thereof. A total of 120 Muga rearers were selected as respondents by simple random sampling technique. Statistical tools viz. frequencies, per cent age, weighted mean score and rank were employed to analyze the data. The problems were studied under subheads of Personal, Social, inputs availability, Technical, Managerial, Economic, Marketing, Transportation, Institutional, Post-harvest technology related problems in a three point continuum of ‘very serious’, ‘serious’ , ‘not so serious’. The findings revealed that most of the respondents perceived ‘Lack of self-awareness’ as major personal problem (WMS=1.89). For social problems, ‘Labour unavailability with high wages’ was ranked first with WMS of 2.57. In inputs availability problems, ‘High cost and low purchasing power’ was reported as the foremost problem (WMS=2.88). Moreover, with respect to technical problem, ‘Less training exposure’ was reported by majority of the respondents (WMS=2.89). Regarding managerial problem, ‘Lack of adequate knowledge of protection measures and management’ was reported as the foremost problem (WMS=2.21). Similarly, in case of economic problem, ‘Lack of own capital’ was reported as the major problem (WMS=2.86). The marketing problem was ‘Poor marketing infrastructures’ (WMS=2.88). In case of transportation problems, ‘high cost of hiring vehicle’ was reported as the major problem (WMS=1.96). In Institutional and post-harvest related problems, majority of the respondents considered ‘Lack of need-based training’ (WMS=2.35) and ‘Lack of machinery’ (WMS=2.82) respectively as the major problems. The measures suggested were like government should take proper initiatives and extend all kinds of support to the rearers followed by proper marketing channels, appropriate price rates, suitable machineries etc. should be provided by the extension agencies.