Author(s):

Moorat Singh

Abstract: India is known as the 'The home of spices'. There is no other country in the world that produces as many kinds of spices as India. The climate of the country is suitable for almost all spices. There are over 80 spices grown in different parts of the world and around 50 spices are grown in India. Chilli is an important ingredient in day to day curries, pickles, chutnies, spices and vegetables. The study was conducted in Raipur district of Chhattisgarh state during the year 2011-12. Raipur district is situated in South Eastern part of Chhattisgarh state and lies at 21.16'N latitude and 81.35'E longitude with an altitude of 298 meter above the mean sea level. It comes under dry moist sub humid region and has an annual average rainfall of 1200-1400 mm, the maximum temperature goes as high as 48 ⁰C during the summer season and minimum temperature as low as 6 ⁰C during the winter season. Out of 4 blocks of Raipur district, only Abhanpur block was selected purposively for the present study, because chilli is cultivated in maximum area in this block. It was found that 30.62 per cent of the respondents were illiterate and 28.75 per cent were educated up to primary school level and 96.88 per cent respondents belonged to other backward caste, The result indicates that majority of the respondents (75.00%) had medium size of family (6 to 12 members) and 43.75 per cent respondents had marginal sized (up to1 ha.) land holding, 35 per cent respondents recording an annual income between Rs. 35,001to 60,000, The important problems faced by the chilli growers was found that majority of the respondents (75.00%) reported incidences of more pest and diseases, followed by high cost of pesticides (59.37%), non availability of fertilizers and pesticides locally (53.12%), inadequacy of labour at the time of picking (50.00%). The major suggestions proposed by the chilli growers that pest and disease resistant variety of chilli should be available was the main suggestion of the 62.50 per cent of the respondents. The other suggestions were fertilizers and pesticides should be available locally in subsidized rate (53.12%) and 43.25 per cent suggested availability of labour at the time of picking is very necessary.

Pages: 326-328  |  1053 Views  301 Downloads

Download (168KB)