FACTORS INFLUENCING TRIBAL FARMERS TO SHIFT FROM TRADITIONAL TO MODERN AGRICULTURE IN WAYANAD DISTRICT OF KERALA

Agriculture has always been a way of life and culture for the traditional farmers. The major occupation of the tribal communities has always been agriculture. The pressure to meet the growing demands of the increasing population forced countries like India to adopt modern methods of farming. This gradually brought about changes in the ancient farming systems that existed in the Country. Kurichiya tribal community in Wayanad district of Kerala is the first agricultural community in the district and has an important role in the agricultural sector of the State. Today, changes have taken place in various aspects of the farming they follow, as a result of influence fro0m several factors. The study was conducted in Wayanad district of Kerala purposively for analyzing the socio-economic profile and the association of selected independent variables with factors influencing the Kurichiya tribal farmers to shift from traditional to modern agricultural system. The study was conducted using Descriptive research design. A total of 120 respondents were selected for the study. Pre-tested schedule was used for collection of data and statistical tools were used for analyzing. Karl Pearsons's Co-efficient of Correlation test was used to find the association between independent variables and factors influencing the respondents. The important findings of the study were that the factors influencing had a highly significant and positive relationship with Education, Mass Media exposure and Progressiveness.