Abstract

Adoption behaviour may be reflected as the predisposition of the behaviour of an individual during the adoption process of any innovation. Here, in the present study, the respondents were women stakeholders selected through panchayat. The study analysed their adoption behaviour towards azolla cultivation because the scientific azolla cultivation has been taken up as the innovation in terms of which the adoption percentage and behaviour was calculated for the present study. The study was conducted in five villages of Coochbehar-II block of Coochbehar district in West Bengal. Purposive sampling procedure was followed in the selection of the district, the blocks and also for the gram panchayats and random sampling procedure was followed in the selection of the villages and respondents in the present study. The adoption percentage was considered as the dependent variable and the other attributes of women stakeholders were considered as the independent variables for the study. The data were collected with the help of structured questionnaire schedule through personal interview method. The statistical methods used for the analysis of the data were co-efficient of correlation and multiple regressions. In the present study, it was found that the attributes like expenditure and knowledge about the technology are positively and significantly associated with the dependent variable and the attribute caste is significantly but negatively associated with the dependent variable, that is, adoption percentage of the women azolla growers. Results also showed that the variable annual income of the respondents is contributing negatively and significantly in case of characterizing the adoption percentage of the women azolla farmers. The R² value being 0.719, it is to infer that the sixteen predictor variables put together have explained 71.90% variation embedded with the predicted variable, adoption percentage.

Key words: Adoption behaviour, women stakeholders, panchayat, azolla cultivation.