Impact of Value Addition Training on Participants of Farmers Training Institutes

Value addition in agriculture predominantly offers a means to increase, rejuvenate and stabilize farm income. Farmers Training Institute (FTI) is a premier training institute, signifying value addition training programme. The study reported here explored, to what extent the training programme of value addition had been changing participants perceived knowledge, acquisition of skills and adoption level. By observing an acceptable level of reliability score of at least 0.78 and assessing the content and face validity of the instrument, two Likert-type scales were constructed. The results exemplified the impact of value addition training in instilling positive orientation in terms of the magnitude of perceived knowledge, acquisition of skills and adoption levels. Moreover, the findings of the study conclude: (i) education level of participants, post-harvest knowledge and attitude towards value addition are contributing factors for improving the positive impact of training, (iii) more feasible strategies (e.g. increasing training duration) are required for improving participant’s skills and (iv) several interventions (e.g. generating new market) of the State Government are needed for increasing the adoption level. The study recommends the policy should emphasize: increasing agricultural and post-harvest knowledge content in formal education, developing and manifesting a positive attitude and improving skills of potential producers, as well as improving producer’s access to resources.