Availability of Facilities and Interest towards Entrepreneurship among Rural Small Holders’ Farmers of Coastal Districts in Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Agriculture has been, for a very long period of time, the main activity for people in rural areas. The climate change, in addition, exiguity of farming land due to the growth of the population, farming has become difficult. Different regions of the world are not affected in an unequal number of disasters and coastal areas are more exposed. Governments, NGOs and researchers have tried to come up with some new remedies. The best way seems to be initiating some allied activities in farmers’ lives to improve their livelihoods. Are the farmers easily welcoming the new exit way to their misery? This study wants to know the interest of farmers towards livelihood enhancement activities through entrepreneurship from Thiurvallur district to Kanyakumari district in Tamil Nadu comprising 13 districts. The data was collected among 286 small landholders through a scheduled interview between October 2020 and February 2021. It wants to assess the existing facilities to improve farmers’ livelihood at their disposal. Major findings through SEM analysis have shown that, holding livestock, possessing machinery for agriculture, possessing other skills than farming to manage livelihood and the membership in self-help groups has a positive impact on the livelihood enhancement activity.