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ThesisItem Open Access Agri-tourism as enterprise diversification in rural Haryana(CCSHAU, 2008) Davender Kumar; Mehta, S.K.Tourism is termed as instrument for employment generation, poverty alleviation and sustainable human development. The state of Haryana has location advantage being nearer to national capital of country, Delhi. There are five National Highways that pass via Haryana to different states of the country. Moreover, the farmers of Haryana are resourceful and innovative and have capability to start this new concept of agri-tourism, therefore. This project on agri-tourism was planned to be studied in Haryana state. Agri-tourism being new concept; it was difficult to find large number of farmers for this profession. A list of 80 farmers was prepared, who were either registered with Haryana tourism or were having equivalent capacity to provide all types of facilities on their farms. They were taken as the respondents of the study. The data revealed that majority of the respondents were belonging to medium category regarding almost all the independent variables viz. age, family education, land holding, socio-economic status, mass media exposures, risk bearing capacity, innovativeness, extension contacts, source of income, man power availability and irrigation facility. The owners of the agri-tourism farms were either already providing or they were ready to provide various kinds of facilities on demand, which were very common and people usually asked for ,while majority of the owners were not providing the facilities which were not commonly asked by the visitors. Regarding visits paid by the various groups it was recorded that as many as 3290 visitors in all, visited various agri-tourism units at different places under study, out of which there were 9 International visitors, 488 national visitors. There were as many as 1698 visitors from the surrounding city areas which come to be the 51.61 per cent of the total population of visitors. In total about two fifth of the total tourists visited different agri-tourism units at different places under study were the children. The number of visitors who visited agri-tourism units in the winter season was more than twice of the visitors who visited in the summer season. Among various kinds of tourism, agri-tourism was found very much related with rural tourism. The findings depicted that majority of the respondents were either self motivated or motivated by their family members. When asked about their interest and needs for various training programme, almost all the farmers showed their interest in obtaining the trainings for the diversification and development of their farm in to agri-tourism and none of the respondents preferred a training of more than a fortnight duration. More than three-fourth of the respondents agreed upon that diversification of traditional farming into agri-tourism was beneficial and it will add to their present income. Also the majority were in favor of that agri-tourism provides a natural environment and it is very eco-friendly. When asked about the benefits of agri-tourism it was found beneficial in many regards such as their status in the society will be increased. A massive majority said that additional income from the agri-tourism was the most important prospect. The major constraint in the development of agri-tourism was the difficulty in getting a loan or the lack of financial facilities.ThesisItem Open Access Diversification in agriculture for high valued crops for sustainable development(CCSHAU, 2009) Laxman Singh; Sehrawat, P.S.A study entitled, “Diversification in agriculture for high valued crops for sustainable development”, was carried in Faridabad and Gurgaon districts of Haryana with the objectives of (i) to identify alternatives to those current farm practices those have the greatest potential to harm the environment, (ii) to identify new crops for crop rotation to fit in farmers cropping system, (iii) to ascertain the training needs of farmers for high valued crops diversification in farming system and (iv) to identify constraints and prospects in the process of diversified sustainable agriculture. A total of 160 farmers were selected as respondents and appropriate statistical tests were used to draw meaningful inferences. The study revealed that maximum respondents were in middle age category. Majority of the farmers were in high school level of education. Maximum respondents were of medium level of SES. In land holding the frequency of marginal farmers were high. Wheat based crop rotation is maximum followed by gram, mustard, vegetable and orchard in rabi season, and rice based crop rotation is maximum followed by bajra, vegetable, jowar and orchard in kharif season. Maximum of the respondents were used tubewell as source of irrigation. The farmers had high level of extension contacts. Cultivation farming is the main source of income. In case of man power availability, males are in major category as compare to female. In case of irrigation facility, mostly the farmers used sprinkler system. In case of other facility available, 50 per cent of the primary agricultural implements were owned and 50 per cent were hired. Regarding secondary agricultural implements, the frequency of hired is maximum as compare to owned and the respondents had less number of storage system as compare to transport facilities. The major prospects towards diversification were high price in diversified crops/enterprises, better economic returns, demand is increasing, better technical support is available and better credit facilities are available at present. The major constraints towards diversification were lack of technical guidance, constraints related to production, constraints related to inputs and finally constraints related to marketing. In case of training needs the respondents were eager to take training mostly in vegetable growing followed by dairy farming, flowers, mushroom growing, pulses, poultry and sugarcane. The status of farmer was found to be medium towards diversification. Age, family education, crop rotation pattern, man power availability and irrigation facilities were positively correlated with prospects. Family education, man power availability and irrigation facilities were positively correlated with the training needs. Family education, source of irrigation, man power availability and irrigation facilities were positively correlated with the constraints. Family education, crop rotation, source of irrigation, extension contacts, man power availability and irrigation facilities were positively correlated with the status of the farmers. Age, land holding, socio-economic status, crop rotation pattern, extension contacts, source of income and other facilities available were negatively correlated with constraints. Age, land holding, socio-economic status, source of income and other facilities available were negatively correlated with status of farmers. Land holding, socio-economic status, source of irrigation, extension contacts, source of income and other facilities available were negatively correlated with the prospects. Age, land holding, socio-economic status, crop rotation pattern, source of irrigation, extension contacts, source of income and other facilities available were negatively correlated with the training needs. All the eleven independent variables contributed to the extent of 74.36 per cent towards the prospects, 85.16 per cent to the training needs, 90.37 per cent to constraints and 75.69 per cent to the status of farmers towards diversification. All the respondents were aware of zero tillage machines, tested their soil and water samples, practice seed treatment and maintaining farm records but were less aware of crop insurance scheme, laser land leveler, vermicompost and storage facilities. In case of new crops for crop rotation wheat, mustard, gram, vegetables and orchards were the crops which were prevalent in the crop rotation in rabi season and rice, vegetable, jowar, bajra and orchard in kharif season.ThesisItem Open Access Communication gap and constraints in kinnow production technology(CCSHAU, 2011) Kamboj, Moji; Mehta, S.K.The present study was conducted in Sirsa and Hisar districts of Haryana state with 80 farmers as a sample for the study. The major thirst of the study was upon the communication gap and communication behaviour of the farmers in relation to getting information for scientific cultivation of kinnow crop. The findings revealed that majority of the farmers were from middle aged group and from the dominant caste, having high socio economic status and more than ten acres of land, educated up to high school, having farming as their main occupation and they mainly came from joint family setup. The DHO and its officials were the most preferred with a maximum credibility and trustworthiness. The university scientists topped the list of information sources from the point of view of level of satisfaction derived by the kinnow growers. The farmers were having a large communication gap of 46.75 with the university scientists and a narrow communication gap of 17.75 and 18.50 with the input dealers and DHO/HDOs, respectively. However, the largest communication gap of 76.67 was found in case of radio. The higher caste and the well educated farmers considered university scientists a more reliable source and therefore seized to opt for input dealers. The major constraints in using radio and television were that most of the programmes broadcasted from the radio and television did not relate to their farming system. The important constraints faced by the kinnow growers in utilizing DHO/HDO were regarding their availability and poor knowledge of horticulture. The farmers faced difficulty to visit the university and search the scientist and they said that few scientists have got expertise on kinnow crop. Non-availability of quality inputs, high cost of insecticides/pesticides and fungicides, inadequate weed control in kinnow production, low production due to unfavorable weather condition, absence of agro-processing units, lack of knowledge of current advances on kinnow production, lack of guidance for controlling insect pests/diseases were considered the most serious constraints by the kinnow growers. All these constraints can be minimized by providing trainings to the farmers and by distributing literature regarding technical know-how to the farmers as it requires specialized skills in certain operations. The facility of modern communication technology can also play an important role in mitigating these constraints.ThesisItem Open Access Problems and prospects of kinnow production under drip irrigation system in Haryana(CCSHAU, 2011) Rajnish Kumar; Hudda, R. S.India is the second largest producer of fruits after China, with a production of 71516000 MT of fruits from an area of 6329000 hectares. Haryana ranks 13th in citrus production. Drip Irrigation is basically precise, slow and artificial application of water in the form of discrete continuous drops, hence, is economic method of irrigation. In Haryana 3112 ha. has been covered under Drip Irrigation System and sprinkler irrigation form essential input for improving productivity and quality of horticultural produce. The present study entitled “Problems and prospects of Kinnow production under Drip Irrigation System in Haryana” was undertaken in the Sirsa and Hisar districts of Haryana state with the following specific objectives:- To measure the attitude of Kinnow growers towards Drip Irrigation System; To study the prospects of Kinnow production under Drip Irrigation System; To identify problems encountered by the Kinnow growers under Drip Irrigation System; To establish association between attitude and personality traits of Kinnow growers. From each districts two blocks were selected purposively, twenty respondents using Drip Irrigation System technology were selected from each of the four selected blocks thus making total sample size of 80 respondents. A sample of 20 Kinnow experts was also taken randomly from scientists working under KVK of selected districts, department of horticulture, college of Agriculture, Hisar, extension functionaries working in district Horticulture office as respondents for the study. The study highlighted that majority of the respondents were in middle to old age groups, belonged to high to medium education status, social participation and extension contact, with high mass-media exposure, risk orientation, irrigation facilities, change proneness and fatalism/ scienticism, having medium socio-economic status. The majority of Kinnow growers had most favourable attitude towards Drip Irrigation System. The remaining were having favourable attitude towards Drip Irrigation System. It is further highlighted that risk orientation, fatalism scienticism and change proneness were found highly significant and positively associated with the attitude. Whereas education were found significantly and positively associated with the attitude of farmers toward Drip Irrigation System. The problems such as initial cost of Drip Irrigation System and its maintenance cost is very high. The problems related to technical aspects were installation of drip system is very cumbersome, the drip lines chocked due to salt in water. The present study shows that more than half of Kinnow growers perceived high level of prospects towards Drip Irrigation System. However, the few of them were having medium and low level prospects. Whereas, a great majority of the Kinnow experts perceived medium level of prospects of Kinnow production under Drip Irrigation System followed by one third Kinnow experts perceived high level of prospects. None of the Kinnow experts perceived low level of prospects of Kinnow production under Drip Irrigation System.ThesisItem Open Access Awareness and perception of farmers towards weather forecasting advisory services in Haryana(CCSHAU, 2011) Rajesh; Godara, Ashok KumarWeather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of atmosphere for the future time and a given location. The main advantage of weather forecasting advisory services is to help farmers, maximize profit by decreasing weather related losses and increasing the timeliness of farm production, Indian farmers are still depend on the seasonal rains which are highly variable both in time and space including weather event like drought, flood, heat waves, and tropical storms cyclones severely effects the agriculture production. With this idea in mind present investigation was conducted in purposively selected Hisar from western zone and Kaithal districts from eastern zone of Haryana state with the following objective:- to assess the awareness level of farmers about weather forecasting advisory services, to know the farmers’ perception about weather forecasting advisory services, to find out the constraints associated with the use of weather forecasting advice, o ascertain the impact of weather forecasting advisory services in decision taken in field operation. The study can be concluded that majority of them were in middle to old age groups, belonged to high to medium education status, social participation and extension contact, with high mass-media exposure, risk orientation, irrigation facilities, change proneness and fatalism/ scienticism, having medium socio-economic status. The study shows that near to half of the respondents had negative perception about weather forecasting advisory services. While about, one third of respondents perceived. The aspect wise perception of respondents about weather forecasting advisory service reveals that majority of the respondents were fully agreed farmer.It was found that great majority of the respondents were fully agreed that Radio , TV broadcasting about weather forecast advisory services is useful to the farmers. However, majority of the respondents were fully agreed that telephone weather services will be useful to the farmers if the call made is free and timely, weather forecasting advisory services help farmers in reducing farm losses, weather forecasting is helpful in managing the operation and activity on the farm /home and Weather forecast affects the farmer’s decision. The most of farmers could not understand SMS on mobile due to lack of knowledge’ was considered the most serious constraints followed by weather forecast information is not location specific, due to flexibility in weather condition information is not right at every time’ was third in rank and the problem of weather forecasting is not timely at the time of flood and drought and all the constraints may be minimized by providing guidance to the farmers and by distribution literature and training regarding technicality of weather forecasting advisory services to the farmers. The problem of belief about traditional weather forecast is more powerful than modern weather forecasting in farmers’ view, weather forecasting an advisory service is brief hence can not be understood by majority of farmers and farmers are not able to know the economic benefit of weather forecasts majority of the farmers are not adopting according in weather forecasting advisory services were also some of the serious problems. The majority of the respondents fully were agreed with the statement that the seed sowing process affected on the basis of weather forecasting information change in cultural operation due to weather forecasting information and it also the irrigation schedule. The source of communication of the farmers regarding the weather forecasting advisory services, two of the major indicators of source of communication of the farmers were the credibility and utilization of source of communication regarding weather forecasting advisory services. It was found Television (ranked 1st) , Radio (ranked 2nd) had mostly used by the respondents as credible channel for weather forecasting information while Mobile SMS facilities by CCS HAU, Newspaper were ranked IIIrd and forth in terms of utilization. As for weather forecasting information Internet facilities ranked last alternate of information in view of respondents as credible channel for weather forecasting information.ThesisItem Open Access Problems and prospects of commercial floriculture in north Haryana(CCSHAU, 2012) Sandeep Kumar; Sheoran, D.K.The study entitled ‘Problems and Prospects of Commercial Floriculture in North Haryana’, was undertaken with specified objectives:-to explore the knowledge level of floriculturists; to identify the training needs of floriculturists; to find out the constraints( problems) encountered by the floriculturists and to develop a strategy for flower cultivation for sustainable development. The present study was conducted in Ambala and Karnal districts from north zone of Haryana state with randomly taken sample of 60 farmers, from each district The study revealed that majority of respondents belonged to young to middle age group, had medium level of education, socio-economic status, change proneness, extension contact and scienticism but high level of mass media exposure and risk orientation. Overall knowledge level of floriculture was medium. Knowledge about concept, importance, harvesting, packing and marketing in floriculture, majority of the respondents had medium level of knowledge. In case of flower varieties, agronomic practices and fertilizer application majority of the respondents had low level of knowledge. It was noted that variable viz. age, education, socio economics status and extension contacts were highly significant and positively associated with knowledge level of floriculturists. The land holding, mass media exposure, irrigation facilities, change proneness, scienticism were found positively and significant related. Further the study highlighted that age, education and scienticism were found significantly and positively associated with the knowledge level of flower cultivation. Whereas remaining background characteristics were found significantly. Procurement of planting materials and purchase of fertilizer, pesticides and micronutrients by farmers were mostly obtained from the private sector followed by co-operative sector. In flower crops cultivation, marigold is the dominate crop in north Haryana followed by gladiolus and rose. The flower growers mostly had to hire vehicle to sale of flowers. The most felt training needs as perceived by farmers were plant disease management, followed by post harvest handling of flowers, use of biproduct and application of herbicides. The major constraint in flower cultivation as perceived by farmers were non-availability of inputs at proper time at village level, non-availability of quality seeds, no support price for flowers, problems of middle men in marketing, use of seed without treatment, lack of guidance about insect’s pests and diseases. As far as the prospects of flower cultivation, flower fetches good market price was ranked 1st, more demand outside the India was ranked 2nd, better for additional income, high price of flowers, gives assured income, quick production, demand is increasing day by day, low production cost and easy to produce, were reported as major prospects of floriculture. Reports and studies reliably indicate that export potential of flowers and consumption, within India, will increase as trend indicates, as not only the aesthetics uses but medicinal value of flowers had also been realised, so the prospects of flowers are bright.ThesisItem Open Access Organic Farming Prospects and Constraints(CCSHAU, 2012) Saeed, Nora Abu Baker; Shehrawat, P.S.The present study was undertaken in two purposively selected districts, namely Sonipat and Hisar of Haryana state with the specific objectives (1) To study the prospects of organic farming (2) To assess the constraints in adoption of organic farming and (3) To develop a suitable strategy for promotion of organic farming. A total one hundred twenty farmers were selected and interviewed with the help of well structured schedule. The interview schedule was divided into three parts i.e. profile of the respondents, prospects of organic farming and constraints in adoption of organic farming. The study revealed that majority of the farmers were of middle age group (36-50 years), educated up to matric, belonged to joint family with 4-6 members, performed only farming and had land holding up to 5 acres. The present study shows that more than four third of growers of organic farming perceived it as more bright level of prospects .However, the few of them were perceived it as somewhat bright level prospect .Thus to promote organic farming, government should make policies and plan training and educational modules for farmers, to ensure balanced agricultural development by adopting the technique and practices of organic farming and to improved market infrastructure for organic foods and the availability of quality bio pesticides to farmers can help in adoption of organic farming. The finding regarding farmers’ perception about input constraints in adoption of organic farming show that Lack of knowledge and demand of bio pesticides (90.8%) was ranked first, the results regarding perception about technical constraints in adopting of organic farming reveals that non availability of improved organic production technology and Lack of knowledge about weed management practices in organic farming were ranked first (94.2 percent), the finding regarding farmers perception about marketing and economic constraints in adoption of organic farming show that No separate market for organic produces and Weak marketing network /sale point both were ranked first with highest weight mean score (360).100 percent of the respondents had perceived it as most serious constraint in organic farming, the results show that transfer of technology constraints in adoption of organic farming namely, Data bank not available about consumers and demand was ranked first with highest weight mean score (2.98).moreover 98.3 percent of the farmers had perceived it as most serious constraint in organic farming and the finding regarding farmers’ perception of certification constraints in organic farming shows that complicated process of organic certification was ranked first constraint (67.5 percent).ThesisItem Open Access Knowledge and adoption of fruit growers in Sirsa district of Haryana(CCSHAU, 2012) Sumit; Mehta, S.K.The study was conducted in Sirsa district of Haryana state during the year 2011-12. This district has higher number of kinnow and guava growers and the maximum area under kinnow and guava production. A total number of 80 farmers constituted the sample for the purpose of the study out of them 40 were kinnow growers and 40 were guava growers. Cent percent of the respondents had knowledge about harvesting of kinnow by sharp edged sickle. About 97.50 percent of the kinnow growers were having knowledge about recommend fertilizer dose application. Cent per cent of the kinnow growers were adopting the recommended varieties of kinnow and 90 per cent of the kinnow growers were adopting proper irrigation method for irrigation purposes. Majority (57.50 per cent) of the kinnow growers fall under medium level of overall knowledge Majority (57.50 per cent) of the kinnow growers were falling in the medium category of overall knowledge. scores. About 95 percent of the guava growers had knowledge about marketing of their produce in local markets and 95 per cent of the guava growers had knowledge about recommended varieties for the area.Half of the respondents (50.00 per cent) had medium level of overall knowledge about recommend cultivation practices in guava cultivation. About 92.50 per cent of the guava growers were selling their produce in local market which shows thinking of farmers towards marketing. About half of the guava growers had medium overall adoption level about recommended cultivation practices. About 48.57 percent and 50.00 per cent of the fruit growers fall under middle age category (43-54 years) and medium land holding category (11-20 acres), respectively. About 63.57 per cent of the respondents had education up to middle standard which indicates good socio-economicprofile of the respondents. About 76.25 per cent were having farming as their main occupation. 87.50 per cent of the respondents experienced gain in yields in comparisons to past after adopting improved fruit production technology and about 82.50 per cent of the respondent experienced increase in their income. Regarding constraints faced included unfavorable climate conditions, soiltype, and difficulty in maintaining the proper soil moisture, high cost of production slow dissemination and adoptability of improved high yielding cultivars, lack of proper technical guidance, and low minimum support price forced by the government.