Socio- economic profile of paddy growers in Chandauli District of Uttar Pradesh

Introduction

Rice is far more than a cereal crop for South Asia; it is the backbone of food security and rural livelihood for hundreds of millions of small and marginal households. Botanically placed under the genus Oryza and cultivated mainly as Oryza sativa L., the crop covers close to 210 million hectares worldwide and remains the principal source of daily calories across large parts of Asia and Africa (Khush, 2005). Its grain, valued for a comparatively balanced amino-acid profile and easy digestibility, contributes meaningfully to nutritional security wherever it is consumed as a staple (Juliano, 1993). At the global level, Asia alone accounts for close to ninety per cent of production, with India now ranked as the largest single producer and exporter, contributing more than a quarter of world output and about two-fifths of the world's rice trade (FAO, 2026). Within India, Uttar Pradesh holds the largest area under rice cultivation in the country, and among its districts, Chandauli in the eastern zone has earned the title "Rice Bowl of Uttar Pradesh" because of the sheer scale and productivity of its paddy fields. The district's fertile alluvial soils, an extensive network of canals and tube wells, and a rice-wheat cropping system suited to the subtropical monsoon climate together create conditions that are unusually favourable for intensive paddy production. Yet the extent to which farmers in such a favourable production environment actually adopt improved cultivation practices, and the way they subsequently market their produce, is shaped less by agro-climatic advantage alone than by who the farmers themselves are -their age and education, the size of their landholding and family, their income, the machinery they own, and how connected they are to sources of new information. A clear picture of this socioeconomic base is therefore a necessary first step before adoption and marketing behaviour can be meaningfully www.extensionjournal.com understood or improved. Several earlier studies on rice-growing communities elsewhere in India and abroad have similarly stressed that socio-economic characteristics condition the pace of technology adoption and the efficiency of marketing decisions (Khattak and Hussain, 2008; Patel and Kanungo, 2020; Pandey and Verma, 2022; Kaur and Mazhar, 2024). However, district-specific evidence for Chandauli, despite its importance to the state's rice economy, remains limited. Against this background, the present paper reports the socioeconomic profile of paddy growers of Chandauli district, forming part of a wider investigation into the adoption of improved paddy cultivation practices and the marketing behaviour of paddy growers in the district.

Materials and Methods

The study was carried out using an ex-post facto research design, which is appropriate where the variables under study have already occurred and the researcher's task is to describe and relate them rather than manipulate them. Chandauli district of the eastern agro-climatic zone of Uttar Pradesh was selected purposively, both because it is recognised as the leading paddy-producing district of the state and because the researcher's familiarity with the local language and farming culture facilitated the collection of dependable field data. Of the nine community development blocks in the district, Berahani and Sakaldiha were selected purposively on the basis of the largest area and productivity under paddy. Four villages were then chosen at random from each of the two blocks, giving a total of eight villages, and fifteen respondent paddy growers were drawn at random from each village with the help of the local Krishi Vigyan Kendra scientist, the District Agriculture Officer and the Deputy Director of Agriculture, giving a final sample of 120 respondents. Ten independent variables age, education, family size, extension contact, mass media exposure, social participation, land holding, irrigation facility, farm equipment and annual income were selected to build the socio-economic profile, most of them measured using scales originally developed by Supe (2007), Nirban (2004,2007) and Pandya (2010), each suitably modified for the local context. Primary data were collected through personal interviews using a pre-structured schedule that was pre-tested on a small group of farmers and refined before the main survey. The information so obtained was analysed using frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean and standard deviation to present a coherent picture of the sample's socio-economic composition. A majority of the respondents, 62.50 per cent, belonged to the middle-age group of 36 to 60 years, while a further 25.00 per cent were above 60 years and only 12.50 per cent were young growers below 35 years. The dominance of the middle-age category suggests that paddy cultivation in the district is largely in the hands of farmers with several years of accumulated field experience, a pattern that is broadly consistent with earlier socio-economic profiling of rice farmers elsewhere (Khattak and Hussain, 2008). The relatively small share of young farmers may reflect the tendency of younger family members to move toward nonfarm employment, a trend that could have implications for the future supply of farm labour in the district Literacy among the sampled growers was high, with 92.50 per cent having received some formal schooling and more than a third being graduates or above. Only 7.50 per cent of respondents were illiterate. Such a comparatively welleducated farming population is likely to be better placed to understand and evaluate new agricultural information, a relationship noted in prior extension research as well (Patel and Kanungo, 2020). The high proportion of educated respondents strengthens the case for using written and digital extension material alongside conventional face-to-face contact in the district. www.extensionjournal.com Medium-sized families of five to eight members were the most common, accounting for 48.33 per cent of respondents, followed by large families at 28.34 per cent and small families at 23.33 per cent. A moderately large family size in this setting typically translates into a larger pool of household labour for the labour-intensive operations of paddy transplanting, weeding and harvesting, which may partly explain the continued reliance on manual rather than mechanised transplanting observed later in the farm equipment profile. Overall contact between paddy growers and formal extension functionaries was found to be weak. Respondents interacted most frequently with progressive farmers in their own villages, with 37.50 per cent doing so once a fortnight, whereas contact with the Assistant Development Officer (Agriculture), the Sub-Divisional Extension Officer and State Agricultural University or ICAR scientists was almost absent, each showing 'never' responses above 96 per cent.

Results and Discussion

Age

Education

Family Size

Extension Contact

The Krishi Vigyan Kendra scientist fared comparatively better, yet even here 70.00 per cent of respondents reported no contact at all. This pattern points to a heavy dependence on informal, farmer-to-farmer channels rather than institutional extension machinery, echoing similar gaps reported for other rice-growing regions (Busari et al., 2020) [3] . Organisational involvement was generally low, with 46.73 per cent of respondents reporting no membership of any local body and a further 36.60 per cent belonging to only one organisation. Only 7.50 per cent held any office-bearing position. Given that cooperative societies, farmer producer organisations and self-help groups often serve as conduits for both technical knowledge and market linkage, this low level of participation may itself be a constraint on the pace of technology adoption and on collective bargaining strength in marketing paddy. Landholding size was skewed toward the larger end of the scale, with large farmers (more than 4 ha) forming the biggest group at 32.50 per cent, followed by small farmers at 30.00 per cent and medium farmers at 26.60 per cent; marginal farmers with less than one hectare made up only 10.80 per cent of the sample. Almost 89 per cent of respondents operated more than one hectare of land, a resource base that is generally favourable for investment in improved seed, inputs and mechanisation. Ownership of farm machinery centred on land-preparation and plant-protection equipment: 43.30 per cent of respondents owned a tractor and trolley, 37.50 per cent a cultivator and 33.60 per cent a harrow, while sprayers or dusters were held by 30.00 per cent. In sharp contrast, mechanised paddy transplanters were owned by only 1.67 per cent of growers and power weeders by 8.33 per cent, confirming that transplanting in the district is still carried out almost entirely by hand. This gap between land-preparation mechanisation and transplanting mechanisation represents a clear opportunity for custom-hiring services or subsidylinked promotion of transplanters to ease labour bottlenecks. Annual household income was fairly evenly spread across the higher brackets, with 29.18 per cent of respondents earning above ₹4,00,000 and a further 26.72 per cent earning between ₹3,00,001 and ₹4,00,000. Only 3.30 per cent reported an annual income of up to ₹1,00,000. The concentration of respondents in the higher income brackets indicates a reasonably sound economic base among Chandauli's paddy growers, one that could support greater investment in improved cultivation practices and in better post-harvest and marketing arrangements if paired with stronger extension support.

Mass Media Exposure

Land Holding

Irrigation Facility

Annual Income

Conclusion

The socio-economic profile of paddy growers in Chandauli district points to a farming community that is predominantly middle-aged, largely literate, moderately well-off and increasingly connected through digital media, yet still poorly linked to formal extension functionaries and only lightly engaged in local organisations. These characteristics carry a mixed message: on one hand, sound education levels, comfortable landholding and rising income levels create favourable ground for the adoption of improved paddy cultivation and marketing practices; on the other, weak institutional extension contact and limited organisational participation could slow the translation of this potential into actual adoption and better market outcomes. Strengthening the presence of extension functionaries in the field, actively using social media and television as delivery channels, and encouraging membership in farmer organisations and cooperatives would together help convert Chandauli's favourable socio-economic base into faster and more widespread adoption of improved paddy technologies and more remunerative marketing behaviour among its growers.

Acknowledgement

AcknowledgementThe authors gratefully acknowledge the cooperation extended by the paddy growers of Berahani and Sakaldiha blocks of Chandauli district during data collection, and the support of the local Krishi Vigyan Kendra and District Agriculture Office in facilitating the survey.

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