An Assessment of Small Growers’ Problem in Betel Nut Production in Assam

Abstract

India is an agriculture-based country and betel nut cultivation is one of the main economic activities for small growers in rural areas of Assam. The betel nut growers of the study area have high potentialities for both productions of betel nut and earn income from it. But there are some problems which arise as a constraint in the production of betel nut as well as in its marketing. Therefore, in this paper, an attempt is made to investigate the various problems being experienced by the betel nut growers of the study area. The study was conducted in the Nagaon district of Assam as it has the highest production of betel nuts in the state. The sample was constituted 240 betel nut growers drawn from 12 villages. The respondents were interviewed with the help of a designed schedule where the problems were expressed in terms of the Likert scale. The main problems experienced by the sample growers in betel nut production were 'loss due to animal attack', 'possibility of affected by disease' etc. However, ‘not getting the minimum price from middlemen' was the main problem faced by the betel nut growers in its marketing.