Entrepreneurial Behavior of Sericulture Farmers in Tamil Nadu

Sericulture is an important agro based cottage industry and labor intensive sector which combines activity of both sericulture and industry. Farmers engage in sericulture enterprise to gain income with less risk. Mulberry, silk worm and cocoon production are the series of activities which needs entrepreneurial skills to achieve profits. This study attempted to analyze the entrepreneurial behavior of the sericulture farmers of Tamil Nadu and the major factors influencing their behavior. Sericulture has been widely practiced in Dharmapuri district and 80 sample farmers were selected based on proportionate random sampling method from three blocks. The Entrepreneurial behavior components like self-effectiveness, opportunity detector, planning ability, leadership ability, risk bearing ability, social involvement and creativity of farmers were measured using seven point likert scale and reliability of data tested by Cronbach's alpha. The findings suggested that the sample farmers had higher social involvement followed by risk bearing ability, self-effectiveness, opportunity detector and planning ability. Leadership ability and creativity has lowest mean scores indicating that sample farmers are less confident in these dimensions. Based on the overall scores majority of the sample farmers were categorized under medium entrepreneurship behavior. Age and experience in sericulture farming are the major factors significantly influenced the entrepreneurial behavior followed by education, participation in associations and source of information in that order. Hence training programmes on technology up gradation, awareness regarding new technologies and latest rearing methods need to be given to the sericulture entrepreneurs to improve their entrepreneurship behavior.