Vivek Dixit, Mustfa Hussain and Himanshu Panday
Abstract
The present study was carried out in the Lucknow district of Uttar Pradesh. Mango is considered the king of fruit; in around 100 countries, mangoes are grown, with India being the largest producer across the world. In India, 65% of rural households depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods and their sustainability. Uttar Pradesh was selected purposively; it comprises seventy-five districts out of 75 districts Lucknow was purposively selected based on the fact that it falls within our universityâs operational area and has an excellent area-production of Uttar Pradesh. Eight blocks in the Lucknow district, i.e., Mall, Malihabad, Chinhat, BKT, Kakori, Gosai Ganj, Sarojini Nagar, and Mohanlal Ganj, out of which the Malihabad block was selected purposively. Out of 100 villages, seven villages and a total of 238 mango growers were selected by a random sampling method. The overall average age of the growers was estimated to be 52.08 years, and 92.44% of male and 7.56% female farmers were engaged in mango production. The 77.31% respondents belong to a joint family, and 22.69% to a nuclear type family. The average family size was found to be 5.70 and 64.29% respondents were involved in livestock activities, followed by other agribusiness activities, 38.66% in the study area. The total average income of respondents was found to be Rs. 389485.66 and overall81.37% land holding was found under mango cultivation in the study area. The marginal small farmers allocate more than 90% of their land to mango production, reflecting high dependence on a single crop; as farm size increases, the proportion of land under mango decreases in the study area. The (65.11%) Dasheri variety followed by other varieties. This pattern reflects farmersâ preference for Dasheri due to its established market demand, better price realization, and suitability to local agro-climatic conditions.