Adoption Level of Various Farm Enterprises by Self Help Group (SHG) Members of Anantapur District

Self Help Groups (SHGs) are small voluntary association of people from the same socioeconomic background with a purpose of solving their common problems through self-help and mutual help. Expos facto research design was used with well-constructed interview schedule. Anantapur district was purposively selected based on the highest number of SHGs in Andhra Pradesh. Three Mandals namely Bukkapatnam, Kothacheruvu and Puttaparthi were randomly selected for the research study. Two villages from each mandal were randomly selected and from each village 20 SHG members were selected thus making the total number of respondent 120. During the year 2019-20 the number of SHGs increased by 2.29 lakh with a corresponding increase in saving by Rs. 2,827.57 crore as on March 2020.The saving outstanding of SHG with Banks as on March 2020 has reached an all-time high of Rs. 26,152.05 crore. In view of the economic importance of SHGs in women empowerment a study on adoption level of various farm enterprises by SHG members were under taken. Study revealed that majority of the respondent's (60.00%) have fully adopted harvesting technologies followed by (57.50 %) have partially adopted scientific management. It was observed that (60%) respondents have not adopted value addition. It was observed that (43.33%) of respondents have fully adopted cattle rearing followed by (37.5 %) adopted poultry enterprise and (42.5%) members not adopted handicrafts vocational activities.