A Brief Overview on Entrepreneurial Effectiveness of Agripreneurs in Kerala, India

This chapter evaluates the entrepreneurial effectiveness of agripreneurs in Kerala, India. In India, agriculture faces a variety of challenges that together lead to sustainability problems. The indicators of agricultural insecurity includes the lack of desired income, poor growth and the movement of farmers away from the business sector. The research project was undertaken in the state of Kerala. Kerala is divided into five agro-climatic zones viz. Southern zone, Central zone, Northern zone, High range zone and the special zone of problem areas. A total of 180 agripreneurs, consisting of 20 on-farm agripreneurs, 20 off-farm agripreneurs and 20 commercial farmers each belonging to each of the three selected districts, constituted the sample for the study. The data collected was statistically analyzed using arithmetic mean, percentage, correlation and analysis of variance. The study indicated that the most effective type of agripreneurs in terms of their entrepreneurial ability was off-farm entrepreneurs, with on-farm agripreneurs and commercial farmers coming in second and third, respectively. A notable distinction was noted between the agripreneurs from the three districts regarding the possession of all six sub-dimensions of entrepreneurial effectiveness: Production management effectiveness, finance management effectiveness, marketing management effectiveness, labor management effectiveness, risk management effectiveness, and time management effectiveness. In contrast, the on-farm, off-farm, and commercial farmers only showed significant differences in their effectiveness when it came to marketing management and risk management.