INTRODUCTION Odisha is well-known for its vegetable production. The state provides a favourable environment for the production of vegetables under both rainfed and irrigated conditions (Das, 2006). Vegetables are perishable commodities with a limited shelf life, necessitating specialised marketing because they are a time-sensitive activity. Thus, the marketing of vegetables is subject to price fluctuations, which the middleman takes advantage of. Aside from that, there has always been a debate about paying farmers a fair wage while keeping prices low for consumers. This focuses on marketing with the goal of reducing price strategies between primary producers and ultimate consumers (Dastagiri et al., 2013). Vegetable marketing is crucial, especially in light of the new liberalisation process and the agricultural sector's value addition requirements. The existing marketing system must be updated by improving skills, knowledge, attitude, and so on (Gayathri et al., 2020). One of the reasons for low agricultural returns is the traditional method of marketing through middlemen, as well as a lack of awareness about new developments in vegetable marketing. Other reasons include unscientific and insufficient crop planning, crop husbandry, post-harvest management, and a lack of alternative marketing channels (Roy et al., 2013). Adequate knowledge of production and marketing aspects is critical for vegetable growers to improve their competitiveness. Vegetable growers must be empowered in order to respond positively to changes in the food market in terms of production system diversification, increased farm productivity, improved product quality and standards, and the realisation of value-added opportunities. Agricultural marketing reforms are underway. With the globalisation of the market, farmers need to transform themselves from mere producers-sellers in the domestic market to producers cum sellers in a wider market sense to best realise the returns on their investments, risks, and efforts (Kumar et al., 2011). The focus of the extension functionaries needs to be extended beyond production. Farmers should be sensitised to various aspects of quality, consumer preference, market intelligence, processing, value addition, and other marketing information (Singh, 2012; Thakur, 2017). This will help the farming community realise high returns for the produce, minimise the production costs, and improve the product's value and marketability. Direct marketing, contract farming, the establishment of farmer/consumer markets, private markets, futures and forward trade, and other provisions are included in agricultural marketing reforms. In this context, a new concept has emerged considering the above reforms. i.e., market-led extension (Nedumaran et al., 2020). Market-led extension can be defined as a tool for the effective delivery of adequate and quality information to farmers for an effective decision on production and marketing issues so as to realise an optimum return for their investment without jeopardising the needs of the future generation (Shitu et al., 2013). Vegetable growers are not benefiting from the changing scenario due to a lack of awareness about the developments and the means to benefit from them. Knowledge of market-led extension is essential for vegetable growers to make informed decisions about what to grow, when to harvest, which markets to send produce to, and whether or not to store it (Ferris et al., 2014). Thus, the need of the hour is to address the aforementioned issues in the vegetable marketing sector in order to increase competitiveness and raise awareness among farmers in order to make them more responsive to market demands. Proper planning for capacity building of farmers on various aspects of vegetable marketing requires knowing the farmers' current level of awareness and assessing their need for training programmes. Against this backdrop, the current study aims to investigate the level of awareness of the vegetable growers on market-led extension system in Odisha. MATERIALS AND METHOD The current study was conducted purposively in the state of Odisha. An ex-post-facto research design was used for the study. Following the Cumulative Square Root Frequency Method, all 30 districts in Odisha with vegetable production data were classified as Higher Production Potential Districts (HPPD) and Lower Production Potential Districts (LPPD). Cuttack was chosen at random from the Higher Production Potential Districts (HPPD) and Puri from the Lower Production Potential Districts (LPPD), and two blocks from each district were chosen at random for the study. Furthermore, two Gram Panchayats were chosen at random from each block. Two villages from each Gram Panchayat were considered the basic unit of this study, making a total village into 16. For the current study, respondents with at least 5 years of experience growing vegetables on a land of 2 acres or more in a year were chosen. A total of 240 respondents (15 vegetable growers from each village) were sampled for the completion of this study via a personal interview method at the vegetable growers' doorstep using a pre-list structured interview schedule. Twelve parameters have been taken to measure the awareness level of the respondents by following the methodology of Thakur (2019) with modification. Respondents were asked to give their response to each of the 12 parameters on a three-point continuum scale, viz., fully aware, partially aware, and not aware, with a scale value of 2, 1, and 0 respectively. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Results portrayed in Table 1 show the awareness of respondents regarding different components of the market-led extension system. The results clearly showed that the majority of Cuttack district respondents (53.33%) were fully aware of "Effective Farm Operation Decisions," whereas the majority of Puri district respondents (64.67%) were only partially aware of the same component. These findings shed light on the primary decision-making factors influencing food loss in the field, such as whether growers have a buyer in mind, the quality of the produce, the available price, the financial risk of product rejection, and the priority of another field maturing and ready to harvest. The findings are similar to the findings reported by Johnson et al. (2019). The majority of the vegetable growers (46.67%) of Cuttack District have partial awareness regarding "Optimum return for Farm Investment", but in Puri District, the majority of the respondents, i.e., 50 per cent, did not have any awareness about the same. This reveals that the majority of farmers were unaware of the return on vegetable sales. This could be due to low producer prices, a lack of markets, or a lack of patronage. The results are in line with the findings given by Matsane and Oyekale (2014). The majority of the respondents of Cuttack and Puri districts (46.67% and 50.83%, respectively) did not have any awareness about the "transformation of farmers from being mere producers-sellers". This shows that the farmers are lagging behind in making their produce profitable. It is expected that if market-led extension on farmers and vegetable production actors is properly implemented, there will be intermediate outcomes like greater market awareness, access to global markets, reliable market data, and enhanced market participation. The intermediate result will lead to the final result, which will be demand-driven production, simple and quick disposal, market access, expanded market, farmer integration, increased income, and greater food security. The above findings are supported by Nwafor et al. (2022). In the Cuttack District, the majority of the respondents (36.67%) are fully aware of "Acceptance to latest production technologies", but 37.50 per cent of respondents in the Puri district have partial awareness regarding the same component. These findings are in line with the findings of Singh et al. (2016). A majority of the respondents of both Cuttack and Puri districts (55.00 % and 50.00 %, respectively) have partial awareness regarding "market information and market intelligence". Similar results were found by Phukan et al. (2018). Similarly, a majority of the respondents of both Cuttack (47.50%) and Puri (41.67%) districts have partial awareness of the "productivity to profitability" component. This shows that most of the respondents are yet to be concerned about the profitability part of the production system. Possible reasons may be the practise of traditional methods along with the unavailability of suitable marketing information. "Subsistence to commercial agriculture" component was partially aware by majority of the respondents (45.00 %) of Cuttack district followed by Puri district (41.67%). This implies that many farmers are still unaware of taking vegetable production as a commercial venture and are only growing vegetables for subsistence purposes. They cannot make this farm profitable unless they include vegetable production commercially. The "Commodity-oriented to farming systems orientation" component was partially aware by the respondents (60.00 %) of Cuttack district, followed by Puri district (56.67 %). Respondents of Cuttack District (74.17%) and respondents of Puri District (67.50 %) were fully aware of the component "Local market to export markets". This means that respondents are aware of marketing their produce not only in their local market but also to distant places to get a good price. It was seen that around 34.17 per cent of respondents from Cuttack district and 30.00 per cent of respondents from Puri district were fully aware of the "Mono-cropping to crop diversity" component. This shows that respondents have to educate themselves about how to use vegetables along with other crops in a crop diversification system and the benefits from them to make a profitable business. Similar results were also found by Kumar et al. (2012). Cuttack district respondents were more aware of the component "Sensitized towards produce quality," with 72.50 percent, followed by Puri district (67.50%). A majority of the respondents in both Cuttack and Puri districts have partial awareness of "Prospects of Contract Farming". The same table also shows the awareness of the respondents on an overall basis. Results in the table show that respondents on an overall basis were fully aware of the components like "Local market to export markets" and "Sensitized towards produce quality". Similarly, Results states that Majority of the respondents in overall basis have partial awareness on components like "Effective Farm Operation Decisions", "Acceptance to latest production technologies", "Market information & market intelligence", "Productivity to profitability", "Subsistence to commercial agriculture", "Commodity-oriented to farming systems orientation", "Mono-cropping to crop diversity", and "Prospects of Contract Farming". Likewise, the components like "Optimum return for farm investment" and "Transformation of farmers from being mere producers-sellers" were not at all aware by majority of the respondents on an overall basis. The details are shown in Table 1. Categorization of Vegetable Growers on the basis of awareness on Market-led Extension System. All the respondents of the Cuttack, Puri, and overall were categorised into three differential levels of awareness of the market-led extension system, i.e., low, medium, and high on the basis of the obtained scores by the respective farmers in Fig. 1. According to Fig. 1, 71.67 percent of respondents in the Cuttack District had a medium level of awareness, followed by 20.83 percent and 7.50 percent who had a high and low level of awareness, respectively. Similarly, in Puri District, 66.67 per cent of the respondents are in the medium level category, followed by 20.83 per cent in the low-level category, and 12.50 per cent in the high-level category on awareness of market-led Extension System. Likewise, on an overall basis, the majority of the respondents (69.17 %) had a medium level of awareness followed by a high (16.67%) and a lower (14.16%) level of awareness of the market-led Extension System.