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Volume-5, Issue-5, October-2015

International Journal of Engineering and Management Research

Page Number: 236-238

Problems Faced by Natural Rubber Cultivators - A Study with Special Reference to Selected Districts of Kerala

Dr. S.P. Mathiraj1, T.V. Bindu2

1Associate professor, Department of Corporate Secretary Ship, Alagappa University, Karaikudi, INDIA 2

Ph.D Scholar in International Business and Commerce, Alagappa University, Karaikudi, INDIA

ABSTARCT Natural rubber is the valued raw materials from very old times. By 2000-01 India had emerged as the fourth largest manufacturer of natural and synthetic rubber products in the world .The rubber industry at present consists of 6 major sectors, namely the Natural Rubber (NR) producing sector, the Synthetic Rubber (SR) producing sector, reclaimed rubber manufacturing, the rubber products manufacturing sector, the machinery segment and the rubber chemicals manufacturing sector. The total annual turnover of the Industry is about Rs 250,000 million giving direct employment to 1.5 million people. The Indian rubber industry has entered the 21“ century with tremendous growth prospects. Vast internal market, rapid industrialisation, improved living standard of the masses and availability of almost all types of raw materials from within the country and the emergence of Information Technology revolution have been responsible for the phenomenal growth of the industry. In the recent years rubber cultivators are facing numerous problems . The present paper is an attempt to study the problems faced by rubber cultivators in the selected districts of Kerala. Keywords---- Rubber production, Environmental costs, Cronbach’s alpha reliability

I. INTRODUCTION The growth of the Indian rubber plantation industry has been mainly through the expansion of rubber cultivation in Kerala. The plantation history of the region started with coffee and cardamom plantations and then moved into tea and finally rubber. The geographical and agro climatic suitability proved congenial for rubber cultivation in Kerala. The cultivation of rubber in India actually started in 1878 from the rooted cuttings imported

from Royal Botanic Gardens, Heneratgoda, Ceylon (Dean, 1987). The first attempt was to introduce rubber as a forest crop in the teak plantations of Nilambur valley under the Forest Department of the Govemment of Madras. On behalf of the Government of Madras, F.J. Ferguson of Calicut undertook experimental planting of Para, Ceara and Castilla rubber at Plantation House, Calicut and at Poonoor near Thamarasseri in Calicut. In 1880, two Hevea plants were sent to the First Prince of Travancore and one of plants still exist in the compound of the Archeological Museum of Kerala, Trivandrum. In 1881, 28 Hevea plants were sent to the Andaman Islands. About 3000 seeds were sent in 1888 to the Commissioner of Central Provinces, Nagpur. A.G. Nicholson planted some Hevea and Castilla rubber trees in Howthorne estate, Salem during 1898 and in Glenbum estate, Kotagiri in 1902. Para rubber was planted in Ponda, Goa during 1900 (Kurian et al., 2000).

II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Kanbur and Morris (1980) have made an effort to

study the measurement of natural rubber price cycles prevailing in the important markets of the world. The authors have analysed the short term fluctuations in natural rubber prices and have observed the existence of cyclical fluctuations of thirty months’ duration in the market prices of natural rubber.

J.Lalithambika (1997) has suggested that the Government could intervene and promote eco-friendly methods of rubber production and provide financial and technical assistance for such methods. Preference for such products results in higher demand and price. According to her, the whole life cycle of rubber production need environmental auditing, and it could be translated to cost, as suggested by Rahaman (1994). But, who bear the cost

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of the effort to internalize the environmental costs, remains open.

M. Kannan (2013) This study examined the factors that influence agricultural production and exports with specific reference to the natural rubber in India. Secondary data was used for this study. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) technique was used in analyzing the relevant data. The OLS findings revealed that natural rubber production is significantly (p<0.05) by export of natural rubber (β=0.05), stock (β=0.21) and domestic price (β=0.21). For export of natural rubber, the OLS shows that stock of natural rubber (β=0.29), world market price (β=15.96), domestic price (β=-18.47) and world population (β=88.37) significantly (p<0.05) influence in export of natural rubber. It is recommended that there should be value addition in respect of natural rubber being exported.

III. SAMPLING FOR THE STUDY Rubber cultivators and rubber exporters constitute

the population of primary data and reasonable representation is given to each of the above category while selecting the sample. The sample selection was made on a stratified random method. Accordingly, data collection was done in Kollam, Kottayam, Ernakulam Kannur and Pathanamthitta these five districts being chosen based on geographical representation and also on the basis of intensity of the production of rubber. The required amount of data was collected through interviews, field studies and questionnaire. Sample selected for the study includes the following: (i) 400 cultivators (comprising of 350 from small holders and 50 from estate holders selected on a random basis from each representative zones)

IV. RELIABILITY ANALYSIS The reliability of scales used in this study was

calculated by Cronbach's coefficient alpha. Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient normally ranges between 0 and 1.

The greater the internal consistency of the items in the scale. The coefficient alpha values exceeded the minimum standard of .70. It’s provided good estimates of internal consistency reliability.

• K is the number of items in the scale. • R is the average correlation pairs of items. • As the number of items in the scale (k) increase,

the value of alpha becomes larger. If the inter-correlation between items is large, the corresponding alpha will also be larger.

TABLE 1 RELIABILITY FOR FACTORS RELATED TO THE

MAJOR PROBLEMS FACED BY RUBBER CULTIVATORS

It reveals that all the seventeen measurement

scale items are reliable as the Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.765. It is greater than the threshold level of 0.70. It’s provided good estimates of internal consistency reliability and also coefficient alpha values ranged from 0.739 to 0.775 for all the constructs. It is indicating that the scales used in this study were reliable. It clearly indicates that above scale items are consistent with each other and they are reliable measure of factors related to the major problems faced by rubber cultivators . so that it can be used for factor analysis.

S.NO. ITEMS CRONBACH'S ALPHA

1 Lack of financial resources

.775

2 Heavy competition .763 3 Lack of cooperation

from employees and family members

.770

4 Inability to market the product

.752

5 Difficulty in finding labors

.752

6 Lack of encouragement from Rubber Board

.745

7 Lack of proper training .741 8 Political interference .750 9 Climatic changes .746 10 Transportation problems .739 11 Lack of government

subsidy .740

12 Fluctuations in the international and national rubber prices

.745

13. Problems related to the quality of the product

.748

14 Domestic price .747 15 Import of rubber .747 16 Storage problems .746 17 Problems related to

packing .748

MEAN 48.26 VARIANCE 33.458 STD. DEVIATION 5.784

CRONBACH'S ALPHA 0.765

NO. OF ITEMS 17

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TABLE 2 ROTATED COMPONENT MATRIX FOR FACTORS RELATED TO THE MAJOR PROBLEMS

FACED BY RUBBER CULTIVATORS

Variable code

Component I II III IV

X8 .757 .232 .063 .041 x1 .720 .210 .042 -.032

X11 .651 -.151 .372 -.005 X14 .556 .159 .302 .111 X15 .501 .294 .197 . 042 X5 .166 .752 .119 -.096 X7 .458 .647 -.035 .059

X10 .029 .511 .294 .197 X13 .412 .463 .209 -.283 X12 .143 .090 .741 .072 X2 .157 .315 .695 -.180 X4 .114 .046 .643 .211 X6 .054 .062 .796 .097 X9 .111 -.180 .786 .029 X3 -.287 .393 .180 .608

X17 .292 .195 .111 .579 X16 .159 .302 -.017 .534

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. and Rotation converged in 4 iterations. Table 2 represents the Rotated Component Matrix, which is an important output of principal component analysis. The coefficients are the factor loadings which represents the correlation between the factors and the fourteen variables (X1 to X11

V. CONCLUSION

). From the above factor matrix it is found that coefficients for factor-I have high absolute correlations with variable X8(Political interference),X1(Lack of financial resources),X11(Lack of government subsidy) and X14(Domestic price) .The next influential factors-II has X5(Difficulty in finding labors),X7(Lack of proper training),X10(Transportation problems),X13(Problems related to the quality of the product),X12(Fluctuations in the international and national rubber prices.) Factor III includes X2(Heavy competition),X4(Inability to market the product),X6(Lack of encouragement from Rubber Board) and X9(Climatic changes) and finally the least influential factors includes X3(Lack of cooperation from employees and family members,) X17(Problems related to packing) and X16(Storage problems) The factor analysis grouped the factors related to the major problems faced by rubber cultivators under four groups based on its influence.

The Indian rubber plantation sector is dominated by small holdings, which in turn makes this sector vulnerable to exploitation by middlemen and price fluctuations. The People’s Participation Programme with the involvement of RPSs has achieved considerable improvement in the quality of processed rubber and thereby helped in realizing better price. The implementation of International Rubber Regulation Agreement and the entry of foreign companies in rubber product manufacture, together with the support from the government, helped the growth of rubber product manufacture in India. The large population and the large manufacturing base, particularly in the automobile industry and the availability of competitive labour, offer great opportunities for rubber product manufacture in India. But the recent trend in rubber cultivation has negative trend due to global fluctuations. The present research grouped the problems faced by the rubber cultivators in the study area.

REFERENCES [1]Ahmed, Faiz, 1989,"Perfomance of Three Spray Applicators of Weed Control in Hilly Terrain", Planters ' Bullet in, The Rubber Research Institute of India, Kottaym, No:200. [2]Anithottam, Mathew, 2998, " Government Policies Ruining Smdl Natural Rubber Growers ", Rubber Asia, Dhanam Publications, Cochin , November-December. [3]Anon, 1987, " Is RRU a Whlte Elephant ?", Rubber Asia, Dhanam Publications, Cochin ,March-June. [4]Viswanath S, 1996, "A Pride of Place in Natural Rubber &aduction3', Rubber Asia Dhamim Publications, Cochin, January-Febnrary. [5]Yogaram N, S.M.M Iqbal & I.N Samarappuli, 1995, "Intercropping of Rubber withTea Feasible", Rubber Asia, Dhanm Publications, Cochtn, September-October [6]H.M.Chandrashekar, Growth and Trends in Production and Marketing of Natural Rubber in Kerala, India Joe Gigy George, International journal of current research and academic review, ISSN: 2347-3215 Volume 2 Number 8 (August-2014) pp. 53-61