Assessment of Training Needs on Entrepreneurship Development for NTFR Stakeholders in Gurez Valley of Kashmir

Entrepreneurship on non-timber forest resources (NTFR) is an important source of sustainable livelihoods and income diversification in the Gurez valley of Kashmir. In order to increase the efficiency of NTFR stakeholders, training is indispensable. This study attempts to assess the training needs, suitable training programme and socioeconomic profile of the NTFR stakeholders. Multistage random sampling procedure was used to select 337 households from 18 sample villages for field survey. Data were collected through personal interviews administering structured interview schedule and analysed using simple descriptive statistics. Results indicated that majority of the NTFR stakeholders were belonged to low socioeconomic status class as reflected by their household characteristics. Among the ten selected major thematic areas the ‘commercialization of NTFR’ (WMS, 3.00; priority percentage, 12.87%) was ranked 1st while ‘conservation of NTFR through JFM’ (WMS= 1.68; priority percentage, 7.21%) was ranked 10th. The short duration trainings (1-7 days) (WMS, 3.00) was ranked 1st among the delivery methods followed by the medium duration trainings (8-14 days) (WMS, 2.84; rank 2nd) and the long duration trainings (3-4 weeks) (WMS, 2.79; rank 3rd). The findings suggested that the trainings on NTFR entrepreneurship of stakeholders is the crucial intervention for livelihood diversification, socioeconomic development and forest conservation; hence, need-based trainings must be planned and imparted to the individuals for improving the entrepreneurial productivity, performance and efficiency. To achieve the desired change in the NTFR entrepreneurship, the training needs identified in this study must be given due consideration during designing the training curriculum.