Driving organic farm success in India: The interplay of agripreneurial orientation and training
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Abstract
Growing concern about the sustainability of the present system has necessitated farmers to show greater interest in `Organic cultivation’ which is a safer alternative environmentally and socially. This study investigates the effect of the three major dimensions of agripreneurial orientation, namely, innovativeness, opportunity seeking, and risk taking on performance of smallholder organic vegetable farmers. Incorporating the interaction effect of training in the framework, the paper discusses how agripreneurial orientation can be critical in driving farm success. Innovativeness and opportunity seeking were found to be contributing significantly to the success of organic farms while risk taking did not exhibit a direct significant effect. However, it was interesting to note that training interventions strongly moderated the relationship between risk taking and farm performance demonstrating that taking risk with effective training led to positive farm performance while without training it may have an adverse impact due to reckless risk taking. Training also moderated the relationship between innovativeness and farm performance highlighting that with effective training, a less innovative organic farmer may also become successful. These findings highlight the synergetic effects of training and its imperativeness for customized and crop focused entrepreneurial training program for enhancing the adoption and success rates of organic farming practices by smallholder farmers in emerging economies. Actionable recommendations for organic farmers, policymakers and other stakeholders for fostering sustainable organic farming practices in India and other developing countries are given.
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