Gujarat Journal of Extension Education

Title: EFFECT OF FoCT TRAINING ON ADOPTION OF COCONUT TREE CLIMBING DEVICE FOR HARVESTING COCONUTS

Authors: Chittaranjan Deka, Lipika Nath and Kishore Saikia

Publisher: The President, Society of Extension Education Gujarat

Keywords: farmers; tree, coconut, adoption and climber

Volume: 33

Issue: 1

Year: June 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.56572/gjoee.2022.33.1.0012

Abstract: Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) is an important and versatile tree crop with diverse uses, supporting the livelihood of many farm families in the primary sector, grown in many states of India. Coconuts are known for their great versatility as evidenced by many traditional uses ranging from food to cosmetics. Assamese people prepare different types of edible items from coconut fruit in many festivals. Now, the majority of the coconut growers in Assam were facing the problems of shortage of skilled labour for nut harvesting. The traditional method of harvesting the nuts is quite risky and accident-prone. To overcome this problem, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Barpeta, Assam conducted training for unemployed rural youths in collaboration with Coconut Development Board, Guwahati. The objectives of the FoCT training were to impart training to a group of unemployed youths in developing their technical skills for harvesting of coconuts, to mitigate the problem of non-availability of coconut tree climbers for coconut harvesting. The present study was conducted at KVK, Barpeta (Assam) with an attempt to know the effect of friends of coconut tree (FoCT) training on the adoption of coconut tree climbing devices. For the present study, 40 trainees were selected purposively. The majority 45% of the trainees use the coconut climbing device only for plucking of their own coconut tree followed by 35% who use the coconut climbing device as a source of income generation and 20% of trainees do not at all use the device. Among the two methods of climbing, the advanced method of coconut tree climber takes less time (3-5 minutes) to climb than the traditional method (7-10 minutes). On the other hand, among the two methods of climbing, the advanced method of coconut tree climber harvested a greater number of nuts and many numbers of harvesting trees over the traditional method.

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