The Relationship between Socio-Economic Characteristics and Information Utilization Behavior of Farmers in Tiruvanamalai District

This study investigated the relationship between farmers' socio-economic characteristics (independent variables) and information utilization (dependent variable). The study was conducted atTiruvanamalai district of Tamil Nadu.Polur block of Tiruvanamalai district was considered as the study area and from that block five villages were selected.A total of 75 respondents was selected using the purposive random sampling technique.The data received were decoded and analyzed with the aid of Statistical Packages for Social Science (SPSS).The socio-economic characteristics of the respondents identified were; age, educational status, family type, occupational status, farming experience, farm size, annual income, farm power status, social participation, extension agency contact, participation in extension methods, innovativeness, awareness about the training centre's, perceived effectiveness of the training programme and perceived attributes.Pearson's correlation matrix results established that educational status and extension agency contact showed a significant relationship in the information utilization behavior off armers.Further result of Pearson's linear regression analysis showed that farmers' educational status were statistically significant at 1% probability level, having effects on information utilization.