Demographic Characteristics and Constraints Faced by Farmers in West Khasi Hills district

A study on demographic characteristics and constraints faced by farmers in West Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya was undertaken during 2016–17. One hundred and twenty respondents were selected by adopting simple random sampling. Results revealed that 37.50 per cent of the farmers belonged to the age group (31-40yr), 35.83 percent studied up to primary school and 50 percent having large size family. Majority of the farmers (45.0%) had marginal land holding, 82.50 per cent of them had low level of annual income with majority of the farmers (58.3%) had no extension contact. Majority of the farmers (87.5%) had medium economic motivation and 54.2 per cent of them had high risk orientation with 41.7 percent of them had livestock possession of both poultry + piggery and 65.0 percent of the farmers had low training. The various constraints were non availability of inputs in time (83.33%), lack of credit on marginal interest (83.33%), fluctuations in market price (83.33%) followed by lack of skill for seed and soil treatment (95.0%) in technical and general problems were uncertainty of rainfall (86.2%) and labour shortage (56.66%).