Index Development Perspective and Farmer’s Perception of Market-led Extension and Advisory Services by Producers Organization in India

Farmers Producers Organization (FPO) are those collectives of primary producers of agriculture and allied sector. The motto of FPO was to mobilize the small and marginal farmers into producer groups so they could gain appropriate and real time market intelligence. The intelligence gained is expected to enhance their forward and backward market linkage and guide them to identify and utilize their space in the agricultural values chain. Herewith, the producers can get maximum possible returns for their produce subsequently, enhancing their farm income, and at the same time, boosts their ability to participate in the commercial markets. The FPOs could achieve this goal through balanced delivery of Market-led Extension and Advisory Services (MLE and AS) which include activities from delivery of production technologies to finding place in the global market. All these are possible through effective participation of FPO members at all stages and activities of FPO; leading the FPO to highly progressive and prosperous growth. For that to happen, it is important to have a measuring instrument for the perception of FPO members about Market-led Extension & Advisory Services (MLE and AS). In this study, a perception index of the FPO members (PIFM) was developed using the standardized procedures with nine dimensions: availability of products and services; appropriateness of products and services; adequacy of products and services; quality of products and services; timeliness of products and services; cost of products and services; responsiveness of the staffs in offering the products and services; usefulness of advisory services; and the content of advisory services consisting a total of 33 items. The validity of PIFM was validated using face and content validity. Consequently, reliability of the PIFM was also verified using Cronbach's Alpha. Thus the study found that the PIFM reliability was 0.846(α).