Farmers Buying Behaviour of Micronutrients in Coimbatore District, India

Micronutrients play an important role in enriching the soil nutrients and thereby improve the quantity and quality of products. The wide spread occurrence of micronutrient deficiencies over a decade is due to cultivation of crops in problem soils and on marginal lands such as sandy soil which is low in organic matter. The present study is to analyse the multidimensional behaviour of the farmers for adoption of micronutrients and their influence in coconut farming. Both Primary and Secondary data is used for the study. Coimbatore district is purposefully selected for the study as recommended by the case firm. Based on the time and resource available with the researcher the sample size was fixed as 90 farmers. Percentage analysis was used to study the general characteristic of the consumers which include age, education, gender, income, etc. The marginal effects of a change in one of the independent variables on the probability of adoption level were calculated by using probit model. Education and experience were the positively influencing factors on adopting micronutrients. Age and annual income of the farmer were the negatively influencing factors for adopting micronutrients among the respondents. Therefore, the firm could concentrate on the factors like experience and education status of farmer to improve its market. Quality of the product was ranked as the most important factor followed by the farmer’s preference, company image, promotional activities and credit availability.