Opinion Leadership among Farm Women in Hill Districts of Uttarakhand State, India

Abstract

The rural agrarian economy of Uttarakhand rests on the shoulders of the women especially rural women in the hill district of the state. The development of the hill regions of Uttarakhand is dependent on both technology generation and technology dissemination as per the needs of the target groups i. e. farm women in the farming system (Mettric, 1993). For effective dissemination of information and technology, the combined effort of extension personnel along with the opinion leaders is a critical component of any developmental strategy. The present investigation aims to identify opinion leaders among farm women in hill districts of Uttarakhand, who may not only enhance the pace of development by ensuring effective extension but can also play a significant role to promote development initiatives at various levels especially in agriculture and allied sectors. Besides, the present study analyzes the extent to which opinion leadership is exhibited by these opinion leaders in the study area. Total 24 farm women were identified as opinion leaders with high in-degree centrality scores and occupying the central positions in the communication network. While, the maximum percentage of the opinion leaders (58.34%) showed low opinion leadership followed by 25 per cent and 16.66 percent of opinion leaders who had high and low opinion leadership respectively.