Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.

Sci (2020) 9(11): 3705-3711

International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences

ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 9 Number 11 (2020)
Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com

Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2020.911.444

Development of the Scale to Measure the Attitude of Farmers towards

Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs)

Shivani Dechamma*, B. Krishnamurthy, M. T. Lakshminarayan and M. Shivamurthy

Department of Agricultural Extension, University of Agricultural Sciences,

GKVK, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

*Corresponding author

ABSTRACT

Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) are being established so that it can help farmers in
Keywords earning more returns through collective input purchase, collective marketing, processing,
increasing productivity through procuring better inputs, augmenting knowledge of farmers
Relevancy,
Reliability, in better management practices and ensuring quality. An attempt was made to develop a
Validity, Attitude, standardized scale to analyze the attitude of members towards Farmer Producer
Farmer producer Organization (FPO) using summated rating methods suggested by Likert and Edwards.
organizations The attitude scale developed was found to be highly reliable and valid. The final attitude
scale consisted of 22 statements and this scale was administered to 30 farmers in
Article Info Doddabalapura district in Karnataka during 2019-2020 to analyse their attitude of
members towards Farmer Producer Organization (FPO). These farmers were personally
Accepted: interviewed using schedule. The results revealed that a vast majority of farmers (73.33%)
24 October 2020 had favourable to more favourable attitude towards Farmer Producer Organization (FPO).
Available Online: The possible reason is that large number of members of FPO is small and marginal farmers
10 November 2020 in the project area. They felt the necessity of associations are more essential for their
sustained development than large farmers, hence the results.

Introduction today, especially small producers.

Overcoming the constraints imposed by the
Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) are small size of their individual farms, FPO
being established so that it can help farmers in members are able to leverage collective
earning more returns through collective input strength and bargaining power to access
purchase, collective marketing, processing, financial and non- financial inputs, services
increasing productivity through procuring and appropriate technologies, reduce
better inputs, augmenting knowledge of transaction costs, tap high value markets and
farmers in better management practices and enter into partnership with private entities on
ensuring quality. Member based FPOs offer a more equitable terms. With fragmentation of
proven pathway to successfully deal with a the holdings due to generational transfer
range of challenges that confront farmers unlikely to abate, FPOs offer a form of

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aggregation irrespective of land titles with increase the profits that accrue to farmers
individual producers and uses the strength of rather than intermediaries and buyers.
collective planning for production, Collectivization of farmer producers,
procurement and marketing to add value to especially small and marginal farmers, into
member’s produce. International and national producer organizations has emerged as one of
experience in the performance of FPOs makes the most effective pathways to address the
a strong case for policy support to member- many challenges of agriculture. Most
based farmer bodies, to significantly increase importantly, role of FPO in improved access
their power in the market place, reduce risks to investments, technology, inputs and
and help them move up in the agri value markets. It is found to be one of the most
chain. appropriate institutional forms for bringing
about mobilization and capacity building of
Farmers Organization are essential farmers in order to leverage their production
institutions for the empowerment, poverty and marketing strength. The agricultural
alleviation and advancement of farmers and marketing continues to be the main stay of
also the rural poor. Politically, Farmers life for majority of the Indian population, as
Organization strengthens the political power more than 58 per cent of the population
of farmers, by increasing the likelihood that depends on agriculture.
their necessity and opinions are heard by
policy makers and the public. Economically, Materials and Methods
Farmers Organizations can help to farmers
gain skills, access inputs, form enterprises, The study was carried out in Doddaballapura
process and market their products more district of the Karnataka State. One non-
effectively to generate higher incomes. By sample farmer producer organization was
organizing, farmers can access information selected for the study. Thus, study was
needed to. Produce, add value, market their conducted on non-sample farmer producer
commodities and develop effective linkages organization. This pilot study was carried out
with input agencies such as financial service in Doddaballapura district with the 30
providers, as well as output markets. Farmers members of the Rajaghatta Horticulture
Organizations can achieve economies of Farmer Producer Company Ltd in a
scale, thereby lowering the costs and systematic way and by organizing Focused
facilitating the processing and marketing of Group Discussion (FGD) to discuss all the
agricultural commodities for individual relevant aspects of farmer producer
farmers. Marketing-oriented Farmer organization. During this study, following
Organizations can assist their members to tasks have been completed:
purchase necessary inputs and equipment,
meet quality standards and manage the Item analysis of the selected items for
drying, storage, grading, cleaning, processing, ‘Attitude scale’.
packing, and branding, collection and Reliability test of statements of ‘Attitude
transportation of produce. In this way Farmer scale’ was carried out.
Organizations provide a more reliable supply Thirty members of the Farmer Producer
to buyers and sell larger quantities at higher Organization (FPO) were personally
prices. Organized farmers have greater interviewed using the scale developed to
bargaining power than individuals and are measure their attitude towards the
better able to negotiate with other more organization.
powerful market players to ultimately

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The collected data was scored and analysed Edwards (1969) and Thurstone and Chave
using frequency and percentage. (1929).As a consequence, 27 statements were
eliminated. The remaining 55 attitude
Results and Discussion statements were included for further analysis.

Development of scale to measure the Relevancy analysis: The selected items were
attitude of farmers towards Farmer then subjected to scrutiny by an expert panel
Producer Organization of judges to determine their relevancy and
subsequent screening of items for their
Attitude is the degree of positive or negative inclusion in the final scale.In this context, 55
affect associated with some psychological statements were mailed to 110 experts in the
object, person, ideas, institution or a field of social sciences working in State
phenomenon (Thurstone, 1946). Attitude was Agricultural Universities, Indian Council of
operationally defined as the degree of positive Agricultural Research Institutes and
or negative feelings or affect of members MANAGE, to critically evaluate the
towards Farmer Producer Organization.The relevancy of each statement viz. Most
method suggested by Likert (1932) and Relevant (MR), Relevant (R), Somewhat
Edwards (1969) in developing summated Relevant (SWR), Less Relevant (LR) and Not
rating scale was followed in the construction Relevant (NR) with the score of 5,4,3,2 and 1,
of the scale to measure the attitude of farmers respectively. The judges were also requested
towards Farmer Producer Organizations. to make necessary modifications and
additions or deletion of statements, if they
Procedure followed for development of desired to. A total of 80 (72.73%) judges
scale returned the questionnaires duly completed
and these were considered for further
Collection of items/ statements: The items processing. From the data gathered,
have been carefully edited and selected in ‘relevancy percentage’ and mean relevancy
accordance with set criteria as the items in score’ were worked out for all the 55
any psychological test. The first step in the statements. Using these criteria, individual
construction of attitude scale was to collect statements were screened for relevancies
exhaustive statements/ items pertaining to the using the following formulae:
FPOs each expressing some opinion about the
psychological object under the study. A large R.P. = MR×5 +R×4 + SWR×3 + LR×2+NR×1 x 100
number of items were collected from Maximum possible score
literature, informal discussions with
agriculture extension experts, the other M.R.S. =MR×5 +R×4+ SWR×3 +LR×2+NR×1
experts from the selected areas and informal No. of judges responded
interviews with the members of FPOs and
director and members of the center of
Excellence for FPOs. Tentative list of 82 Accordingly, statements having ‘relevancy
statements pertaining to the attitude of percentage’ of 75 per cent and above and
members towards the FPOs was prepared. mean relevancy score of 3.75 and above were
considered for final selection. 32 attitude
Editing of the items: The statements were statements were retained after relevancy test
carefully edited, revised and restructured and these statements were suitably modified
based on the 14 criteria enunciated by and written as per the comments of the judges
wherever applicable.

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Item analysis: To delineate the items based n = Number of respondents in each group
on the extent to which they can differentiate ∑ = Summation
the attitude items about FPOs as favourable or
unfavourable. Item analysis was carried out t = The extent to which a given statement
on the items selected in the first stage. 32 differentiates between the high and low
statements were subjected for ‘t test’ to know groups.
the difference in highest and lowest responses
for the relevancy. Based upon the total scores, After computing the‘t’ value for all the 32
the judges were arranged in descending order. statements, 22 attitude statements with ‘t’
The top 25 per cent of the respondents with value equal to or greater than 1.645 were
their total scores were considered as high finally selected and included in the final
group and the bottom 25 per cent as the low attitude scale. Ten statements were non-
group so that these two groups provided the significant.14 statements were significant at
criterion groups in terms of evaluating the one per cent level and the remaining 6
individual statements.Thus, out of 30 statements were significant at five per cent
members of Rajaghatta Horticulture Farmer level. Out of the remaining 22 statements, it
Producer company Ltd to whom the items contains 10 negative statements and 12
were administered for item analysis, eight positive statements.
members with highest and eight members
with lowest scores were used as criterion Standardization of scale
groups to evaluate individual items. The
critical ratio, that is, the ‘t’ value which The reliability and validity were ascertained
analyses the extent to which a given statement for the standardization of the scale.
differentiates between the better and poor
groups of respondents for each statement, was Reliability of the scale developed
calculated by using the following formula:
The split-half method was employed to test
the reliability of the attitude scale. The value
of correlation coefficient was 0.5716 and this
was further corrected by using Spearman
t= Brown formula to obtain the reliability
coefficient of the whole set. The ‘r’ value of
Where, the scale was 0.7274, which was significant at
one per cent level indicating the high
X̄H= The mean score on given statement of reliability of the scale. It was concluded that
the high group the attitude scale constructed was reliable.

X̄L = The mean score on given statement of Half test reliability formula
the low group N(∑XY–(∑X) (∑Y)
r1/2 =
(N∑X – (∑ X)2 ) (N∑ Y2 – (∑ Y)2
2

∑X2H = Sum of squares of the individual

score on a given statement for high group
Where,
∑X2L = Sum of squares of the individual
score on a given statement for low group ∑X =sum of the socres of the odd number
items

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∑Y =sum of the scores of the even appropriate and suitable for the tool
numbers items developed. Thus, the developed scale to
measure the attitude of members towards
∑X2 = sum of the squares of the odd FPOs was found feasible and appropriate.
number items
Validity of the scale
∑Y2 = sum of the squares of the even
number items Validity formula

Test reliability formula V=

r1/2
r11 = Administration of the scale
1+ r1/2
The final scale consists of 22 statements for
Where, determining the attitude of members towards
FPOs. The response was collected on a five-
r1/2 = Half test reliability point continuum, namely, Strongly Agree
(SA), Agree (A), Undecided (UD), Disagree
Validity of the scale: The data was subjected (DA), and Strongly Disagree (SDA) with
to statistical validity, which was found to be assigned score of 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 respectively
0.8528 for scale which is greater than the for positive statements and reverse scoring for
standard requirement of 0.70. Hence, the negative statements.
validity coefficient was also found to be

Table.1 Scale to measure the attitude of members towards the Farmer Producer Organization
(FPO)

Sl. No. Attitude statements RP MRS t-value

1. FPOs help in increasing confidence among farmers 93.75 4.69 2.21**
2. FPOs provide needful information on improved 89.25 4.46 2.19**
agricultural practices
3. FPOs is not a long- term solution to the problems of 86.00 4.30 2.11**
price inflation
4. FPOs is a boon for farmers 86.25 4.31 2.13**
5. FPOs mismanages the local resources
6. Much is talked about FPOs but little work is done 77.50 3.88 1.78*
7. Organizing farmers into groups is waste of money 83.50 4.18 2.03**
8. FPOs have created more problems for members than 81.25 4.06
solving 2.00**
9. Attending FPOs work is time consuming for the 83.25 4.16
members 2.02**
10. Activities of FPOs are not as per members needs 80.00 4.00 1.90*
11. I feel that FPOs is a prospective system to empower 78.00 3.90
farmers 1.80*
12. FPOs are not potential enough to bring about agricultural 87.25 4.36

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development 2.14**
13. I endorse that FPOs is farmers friendly approach to sale 84.75 4.24
farm products 2.07**
14. FPOs induces cosmopolitness of its members 85.75 4.29 2.11**
15. FPOs inculcate the decision-making ability among their 84.75 4.24
members 2.07**
16. FPOs work on the principle of democracy 82.50 4.13 2.01**
17. FPOs provide need-based consultancy services to the 84.25 4.21
members 2.06**
18. FPOs is not rigid as co-operatives 77.75 3.89 1.79*
19. Administration / management of FPOs involve too much 85.25 4.26
of autocracy 2.09**
20. FPOs increase overhead charges 74.50 3.73 1.76*
21. Benefits from government / other institutions could be 84.50 4.23
availed by FPOs members 2.08**
22. Peer pressure affects the functioning of Farmers 78.00 3.90
Producer Organization 1.81*

Table.2 Overall attitude of the members towards Farmers Producer Organization (FPO)

Sl. No Categories Criteria Score Attitude of farmers

Number Percentage
1 Less Favourable Less than <73.426 8 26.67
(Mean- ½ SD)
2 Favourable Between 73.426-77.441 12 40.00
(Mean ± ½ SD)
3 More Favourable More than >77.441 10 33.33
(Mean + ½ SD)
Total 30 100.00
Mean= 75.44, SD=4.014

Thus, the minimum and maximum score one categories namely, less favourable, favourable
could get is 22 and 110, respectively. Higher and more favourable.
the attitude score indicates the high
favourable of respondents towards FPOs and The result from table 2 shows that 40.00 per
lesser the attitude score indicates less cent of the members had favourable attitude
favourable towards FPOs. The total attitude towards the framer Producer Organization,
score for each respondent was obtained by whereas 33.33 and 26.67 per cent of the
adding the weights of individual responses members possessed more favourable and less
made to the total scale items (Table 1) favourable attitude towards Farmer Producer
Organization (FPO).. it can be inferred that a
The attitude scale developed was majority of the members (73.33%) had
administered to 30 FPO members. Based on favourable to more favourable attitude
the mean and standard deviation, the FPO towards Farmer producer
members were classified into three attitude Organization(FPO).FPOs helps to enhance the

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producer share in the consumer rupee thereby commodity-based associations, Ph.D

enhancing the confidence among the peasants (Agri.) Thesis (Unpub.), Univ. Agric.
to continue in agriculture profession, hence a Sci., Bangalore, Karnataka.
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favourable to more favourable attitude Anand, T.N. Anand and
towards FPO. Similar trend of findings was Lakshminarayan, M.T. 2011. A scale to
observed by Jayantha Roy (2011), Gopala measure the attitude of Beneficiaries
(2015) and Lakshmana reddy (2020). towards Mahatma Gandhi National
Rural Employment Guarantee
In conclusion the attitude scale is found to be Programme. Mysore J. Agric. Sci..
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How to cite this article:

Shivani Dechamma, B. Krishnamurthy, M. T. Lakshminarayan and Shivamurthy, M. 2020.

Development of the Scale to Measure the Attitude of Farmers towards Farmer Producer
Organizations (FPOs). Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci. 9(11): 3705-3711.
doi: https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2020.911.444

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