Economic Affairs, Vol. 64, No. 2, pp. 271-280, June 2019 DOI: 10.30954/0424-2513.2.2019.1 ©2019 New Delhi Publishers. All rights reserved Prioritization of Stakeholders in Diffusion of CAU-R Series Varieties in Manipur Jyothi S.S.P 1 , Loukham Devarani 1* , K. Noren Singh 1 , Ram Singh 1 , Rajkumar Josmee Singh 1 , L. Hemochandra 1 , M. Kunjaraj Singh 2 and Daya Ram 2 1 College of Post Graduate Studies in Agricultural Sciences, Central Agricultural University (Imphal), School of Social Sciences, 793103 - Umiam, Meghalaya, India 2 College of Agriculture, Central Agricultural University (Imphal), Department of Extension Education, 795004 - Iroisemba, Manipur, India *Corresponding author: loukham.d@gmail.com ABSTRACT This study was conducted in order to understand the importance of the identified stakeholders in terms of power and interest in the diffusion of CAU-R series high yielding varieties of Rice among the farmers of Manipur. Three valley districts namely Imphal East, Thoubal and Bishnupur were purposively selected for the study and 85 stakeholders were identified and prioritised according to “degree of power to” and “degree of interest on” in the successful dissemination of improved technology among the farming fraternity. The results of the study witnessed that the Central Agricultural University, Imphal, the Department of Agriculture, Manipur and the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare had high power and high interest in all the three districts along with Krishi Vigyan Kendra Imphal East, Krishi Vigyan Kendra Thoubal and the Regional Rice Research Station in Imphal East and Thoubal districts respectively. The farmers and the Farmer collectives were identified with high interest and low power while the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Regional Centre, Manipur and Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Imphal West remained with neutral power and interest in all the three districts. The Media comprising mainly of the All India Radio, Doordarshan Television and the local newspaper Sangai express has very low interest as well as power in all the three districts. Through these observations we conclude that stakeholders like farmers and farmer cooperatives who are the actual intenders of the technology with considerable level of interest should be involved into the system for effective planning, decision-making and successful functioning of the innovation system. Highlights m The public organizations dominated the stakeholder typology and the CAU had the ultimate power of decision-making and resource allocation. m The CAU, SDA, MoA&F, KVK-A, KVK-TH & RRS had high interest and power while the farmers and their collectives had high interest and low power. Keywords: Stakeholder, Diffusion, Improved Technology, Rice, Manipur The process of diffusion and adoption of any new technology requires the collaborative effort of multiple stakeholders (Badibanga et al. 2013). A stakeholder is any individual with a blatant or credible interest or stake in a policy issue. Stakeholders may assume any form, size and capacity (ODA, 1995). They can be individuals, organizations, or unorganized groups. Stakeholder Analysis (SA) is an approach to expedite institutional and policy transformation processes by being responsible for and regularly integrating the needs of those who have a ‘stake’ or an interest in the reforms under consideration (MacArthur, 1997). According to Dentoni and Peterson (2011), multi- stakeholder engagement in agri-food supply chain has become very essential to make agricultural brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Economic Affairs - Official Publication of AESRA