Abstract:
Pineapple (Ananas comosus), the Queen of fruits, is a crop of the humid tropics. Commonly grown as a monocrop in jhum abandoned areas in the North Eastern Region of India. India ranks 5th in term of production worldwide contributing 7 percent share of world production. In India the state of West Bengal is the highest producer with 21.5 percent share in production in the country followed by Assam and Karnataka with 15.6 and 13.1 percent respectively. Meghalaya ranks 7th with 6.1 percent share. This study was conducted in Ri-Bhoi district of Meghalaya to find out the Information Source Utilization Pattern of the Pineapple Farmers of this district. The results observed were as follows:- most of the farmers (45%) were medium age category between 36-46 years, had an annual income between Rs.68370 – 119595 (56.67%), medium level cosmopoliteness (68.33%), low to medium level scientific orientation (38.33%), high farming experience of more than 10 years (86.67%), primary education upto class 5 (46.67%), farm size between 1-2 hectares (46.67%) and occupation involving farming and other enterprises without govt. job (95%). Out of the 12 stages of production there is high information source utilization in 7 stages i.e., Planting and harvesting (10.77%), followed by weeding and marketing (10.75%), propagation (10.73%), mulching (10.71%), post-Harvesting (10.65%). Even though they mostly used localite sources it is seen that there is higher percentage of utilization for personal cosmopolite source (52.68%). This is because for some stages like fertlizer application, spraying, spacing , storage and processing, most of them do not practice and even though they do not seek information but they get from sources other than localite sources. Within the personal localite sources family came first in information source utilized with 16.8 per cent and for personal cosmopolite source HDO and DHO came first (20.7%). The respondents feel that personal localite sources (50.36%) were more credible than personal cosmopolite sources (49.64%) but only just by a small margin. And among the personal localite sources family (32.37%) were perceived to be most credible and from personal cosmopoliye source HDO and DHO (34.88%) were perceived to be most credible. There is significant association between the two dependent variables (information source utilization and source credibility) with the personal variables age, education, cosmopoliteness and scientific orientation. There was no significant association found with farm size, farming experience, occupation
and annual income. The major problems felt by them were lack of knowledge on; how to use modern mass media and ICT tools, understanding technical terms, electrification, distance of institutions and insufficient time to visit experts.

Includes bibliographical references.