farmers were able to educate their children. In course of time majority of the youngsters from farmer households who had acquired higher education qualifications managed to get permanent employment in the secondary and tertiary sectors. Many of them are now working in other states and foreign countries as emigrant labourers leaving the task of paddy farming to the old generation. The mean age of the sample farmers in the study area is found to be 52 years and 10 percent of them are above years old. It is also observed that more than 55 percent of them are having 50 or more year’s age while the percentage of farmers below 40 years old is only 18.9 percent. Further it is found that among the 17 cultivators in the age group of 30 to 40 years only one person is a pure paddy cultivator while all the others are engaged in other activities earning a major portion of their annual income from other sources. Age distribution of sample farmers in the study area is
