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Open Access
A study on knowledge and adoption of Improved production technologies of litchi by the growers in Garhwal division of Uttarakhand
(G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, District Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand. PIN - 263145, 2022-09) Tomar, Minakshi; Bhardwaj, Neelam
Horticulture is one of the most elite sectors of agriculture which contributed 30.40 per cent to the agriculture GDP. The changing life style of people resulted in change in consumption pattern from cereals to fruits and vegetables. India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables. Litchi is one of the most important commercial horticulture crops. The world scenario of litchi cultivation revealed that India is the second largest producer of litchi all over the world following China. In India, Bihar occupies largest production area and ranks first in total litchi production in India. Uttarakhand despite having second largest litchi production area ranks eighth in term of litchi production. In order to increase production of horticulture crops, government has taken many initiatives but production is still not up to the mark. In Uttarakhand, among all the Litchi growing districts Nainital ranks first, Dehradun ranks second followed by Haridwar in terms of Litchi production. In spite of the fact that Dehradun secures second place in litchi production among all the districts of Uttarakhand and occupies largest area under litchi cultivation as compared to other districts, but productivity is still low as compared to Nainital district. In fact, productivity is lowest among top three litchi growing districts. There is huge gap between the yield of litchi orchard recorded at the research farm and its production at the growers’ field. Therefore, study entitled “A Study on Knowledge and Adoption of Improved Production Technologies of Litchi by the Growers in Garhwal Division of Uttarakhand”. The present study was undertaken to find out the profile characteristics of the Litchi growers along with their knowledge and adoption of improved production technologies of Litchi. Relationship between profile characteristics and knowledge level and extent of adoption of improved production technologies. The study was conducted in Dehradun district of Uttarakhand state. A total of 61 respondents were selected who were cultivating Litchi through census method from Vikasnagar, Sahaspur and Raipur Block representing nine villages. Three villages from each block were selected. Profile characteristics of Litchi growers were studied. Interview schedule and knowledge tests were developed for measuring knowledge and adoption of improved production technologies of Litchi growers. The findings of the study revealed that maximum number of the respondents (40.98%) belonged to middle age group, had education up to graduation and above (50.82%), small family size (72.13 %) having 2 to 6 members. More than half of the respondents (55.74%) had agriculture as the only source of occupation. Majority of the respondents (90.16%) had low annual income. Maximum number of the respondents (32.79%) had small land holdings of 2.5-5 acres and marginal orchard size (44.26%), had short experience in Litchi farming (47.54%). Respondents had negligible training exposure; only 11.47 per cent of the respondents were exposed to the trainings related to the Litchi cultivation. Nearly sixty per cent of the respondents (59.02%) had low level of information seeking behaviour and low scientific orientation (55.74%). Slightly less than half of the respondents (49.18%) had low level of innovativeness and majority of the respondents (63.94%) had low economic motivation. Half of respondents (50.82%) had medium level of decision making ability followed by high level of risk-taking ability (42.62%). Maximum number of respondents (47.54%) had medium level of knowledge on improved production technologies of Litchi. Nearly sixty per cent of the respondents (57.38%) had medium level of adoption of improved production technologies of Litchi. It was found that annual income, information seeking behaviour, scientific orientation, economic motivation, innovativeness, decision making ability and risk-taking ability had positive and significant relationship with knowledge and adoption of improved production technologies. Education and experience in litchi farming found to have positive and non-significant relationship and age had negative and nonsignificant relationship with the knowledge and adoption of improved production technologies of Litchi. It can be concluded on the basis of findings as maximum number of Litchi growers had medium level of knowledge and adoption. Thus there is a need for extension functionaries to design interventions on improved production technologies of Litchi so that productivity of Litchi can be enhanced.
Open Access
A comparative study on adoption of conservation agriculture practices by wheat growing farmers in Northern India
(G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, District Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand. PIN - 263145, 2022-09) Bardhan, Tannishtha; Bhardwaj, Neelam
Post green revolution era has countersigned a number of alterations and challenges in Indian agriculture due to practicing of intensive cultivation techniques. Sustainability issues with respect to agro-ecology and soil health were questioned seriously.The multifaceted interaction of population growth, technological advancement and climate change cripples Indian agriculture to a great extent. Conservation Agriculture (CA) practices were looked upon as next best alternative to regain sustainability. Conservation Agriculture (CA) as defined by FAO (2014) is an approach to manage agro-ecosystems for improved and sustained productivity, increased profits and food security while preserving and enhancing the resource base and the environment.Understanding the prospects of CA, significant efforts have been made by CGIAR institutes in close collaboration with National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems (NARES) resulting in its adoption in the Indo-Gangetic plains of India.But even after 15 years of introduction of CA technologies, majority of the Indian farmers are still partially adopting CA techniques. Small and marginal farmers are still the untouched segment with respect to adoption of CA practices. Behavioural change among the farmers can be inculcated by altering the existing attitude of farmers towards CA practices. Keeping all these issue in the frontline the present research study was undertaken. Punjab and Haryana being the wheat basket of India introduced the cultivation of Zero-tilled wheat in the last decade as these two states were facing the problems of depleting ground water table, formation of hard pan under soil, enhanced soil salinity, residue burning issues and nutrient deficiency. These factors directly or indirectly swayed the sporadic adoption of CA practices in rice-wheat cropping system in these two states. For that reason, the states of Punjab and Haryana were selected purposively for the study keeping in mind the fact that a good information and data can be generated about CA adopter and non-adopter farmers. One district from each state was purposively selected i.e. Karnal in Haryana and Ludhiana from Punjab. From each selected districts, two blocks were again purposively chosen based on the afore-mentioned criteria. In present study, three villages from each block were picked up through Simple Random Sampling without replacement method. Ten CA adopter farmers and ten CA non-adopter farmers were randomly selected from each village and thus total sample size was 240. The present study concluded that CA adopter farmers differed significantly from CA non-adopter farmers with respect to majority of the socio-economic, communicational and psychological attributes. Majority of the CA non-adopters being small and marginal farmers were having least risk taking ability to make a shift from conventional tillage based practices to zero tilled cultivation. This variation in the socio-economic attributes affect the innovation decision and adoption process of the farmers. Comparing with the non-adopter farmers, CA adopters were having better knowledge and more favourable outlook towards CA practices in wheat. Impact of different behavioural drivers on the adoption of CA e h t g n i v i e c r e p , e d u t i t t a e v i t i s o p g n i v a H . g n i l l e d o M l a n o i t a u q E l a r u t c u r t S g n i s u s p u o r g g n i m r a f e h t h t o b r o f d e i d u t s s a wu sefulness of this technology and comprehending the relative advantage of CA over tillage based cultivation mainly influenced the intention and behaviour of the CA adopter farmers. While for non-adopter farmers, apart from attitude, perceived usefulness and relative advantage of CA, subjective norms also played a significant role in shaping the intention to adopt the new technology. The study also summarized that the benefits as perceived by the adopter farmers could be divided into two groups: economical and environmental. Perceptual mapping of perceived benefits revealed that major beneficial aspects of CA are improvement in the soil health, decline in the cost of cultivation, lodging resistance of wheat, climate resilience and improvement in the grain quality. On the other hand, the bottlenecks like greater weed and pest infestation, stereotypic mind set of the farmers, limited access to productive resources, lack of proper information etc, pulled back non-adopter farmers to try and practice CA practices in wheat. The study also documented some plausible strategies from subject matter experts to overcome these barriers. The study findings emphasize on the fact that blanket application of CA practices is not a feasible option and hence policy makers should rethink and realign the approaches and develop suitable framework to promote CA practices holistically. The strategies must be need based, demand driven, tailored to specific locale and target oriented and then only it could help in achieving sustainability and resiliency of thefarm and the farming system as a whole
Open Access
Farmers attitude towards extension services provided by KVK: a study in Garhwal region of Uttarakhand
(G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, District Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand. PIN - 263145, 2022-09) Bisht, Aviral; Kandpal, Arpita Sharma
India ranks second worldwide in farm outputs. Agriculture employes more than 50 per cent of the Indian work force and contributed 19.9 per cent to country's GDP. Nearly 83 per cent of Indian population depends on Agriculture and allied enterprises, out of which 52 per cent are getting direct employment from agriculture sector. Thus, agriculture is still the backbone of Indian economy. KVKs are district level farm science center which can help in speedy transfer of technologies to the farmers field by building bridge between SAUs/research institutes and farmers. KVKs in Uttarakhand are touching farmers at the grassroot level. Sometimes if the changes among farmers towards adopting new technologies don't come in favour, farmers are easily blamed for not responding to extension programs. So it becomes necessary to find out how the farmers actually perceive the services of KVKs, their level of satisfaction with them and the attitude that the farmers develop towards the services offered by KVKs. Moreover, it is also essential to find out which services and methodologies are perceived to be more effective by the farmers. The present study was conducted in Uttarakhand KVK Chinyalisaur of Uttarkashi district was selected purposively for the study. Two blocks (Chinyalisaur and Dunda) were selected randomly. Four villages were selected (two from each block) through Simple Random Sampling. Total 96 respondents were selected through PPS method. Descriptive research design was used to collect data. Pre tested interview schedule used for data collection, Statistical techniques such as frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, coefficient of correlation and t-test were used to analyze the data for interpretation. The findings of the study revealed that majority of the respondents were male (83.33%), belonged to middle age group (58.33%), had secondary level of education (30.20%), had small size land holding (70.83%), were medium size family (72.91%), and have medium annual income (73.95%). Majority of respondents have medium farming experience (69.79%), had medium level of social participation (57.29%), had medium level of risk orientation (66.66%), and had medium level of mass media exposure (64.59%). Majority of the respondents (65.62%) had neutral attitude towards extension services provided by KVK. Variables like farm experience and social participation are significantly related with the farmers attitude towards extension services provided by KVK, education and family size are negatively non significantly related with the farmers attitude and age, land holding, annual income, risk orientation and media exposure are positively non significantly related with the farmers attitude towards extension services provided by KVK at 5% level of significance. The major constraints faced by the respondents in availing the services offered by KVK were Lack of transport facility (60.20%), small sized land holdings (56.36%), Improper work of SHGs (54.64%), Lack of finance (54.55%), Inability of women folks to go for on-campus training (49.64%), Lack of marketing facility (46.28%), Lack of sincerity among the farmers (45.89%) and Lack of follow up activities by KVK staff (33.44%). The findings of the study will be useful to extension workers, research workers and administrators as the findings provide an opportunity to have in-depth understanding of the socio-economic, communication and psychological characterstics of farmers that are availing the KVK services and are residing in hills of the Uttarakhand.
Open Access
A study on extent of utilization of extension advisory services by vegetable growers in Kumaon Hills of Uttarakhand
(G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, District Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand. PIN - 263145, 2022-09) Negi, Monika; Bhardwaj, Neelam
India ranks second in vegetable production in the world. Though, Uttarakhand has varied agro-climatic conditions suitable for cultivation of high value, off-season and exotic vegetables along with seasonal vegetables in hills. Vegetable cultivation provides a number of additional advantages, such as vegetables have a shorter growing duration than cereal crops, allowing for more crops to be planted, measured as a percentage of total land area in a year. Vegetable cultivation in Uttarakhand is still an unorganized sector in which farmers follows traditional farming practices. Many public sectors like KVKs, SAU, Government institutions are engaged in providing better extension advisory services mainly for growing food grains not for vegetable production. For this extension agent, scientists and experts have to play essential role to motivate vegetable growers so that they ultimately get good extension and advisory services and can achieve a sense of satisfaction. Among them agriculture information should reach to the farmers in right perceptive, in the right form and in right time as it is very important for enhancing the productivity of the farm produce. Although farmers are getting information from diverse communication sources like interpersonal sources such as personal localite and personal cosmopolite and different mass media. But despite there is a lot of information gap on the part of farmers. There is a need to know which information sources and channels are being utilized by the farmers and how these technologies reached farmers. Therefore, study entitled “A Study on Extent of Utilization of Extension Advisory Services by Vegetable Growers in Kumaon Hills of Uttarakhand”. The study was conducted in Nainital district of Uttarakhand state. A total sample of 90 respondents was selected through purposive sampling and proportional allocation method from Bhimtal Block representing three villages Alchauna, Chafi and Banna. Data on profile characteristics of vegetable growers were collected. A schedule was developed for measuring extent of utilization of extension advisory services by vegetable growers. The findings of the study revealed that fifty-five per cent of the respondents belonged to middle age group and had medium family size (55.56 %) having 4 to 7 members. Nearly three fourth of the respondents were male (73.33%) and had education up to intermediate (33.33%). Majority of the respondents (60%) had medium land holding of 21-34 Nali and 66.67 per cent of the respondents had medium size of land under vegetable cultivation of 11-21 Nali. Three- fourth of the respondents (75.56%) had medium income level. Results further revealed that more than ninety per cent of respondents (93.33%) owned mobile phones, 57.78 per cent had medium level of mass media exposure, social participation (68.89%). Majority (80%) of the respondents had medium information seeking behaviour, 53.33 per cent, economic motivation, (48.90%), risk preference (48.89%) and credibility to extension advisory services. Majority of respondents (89%) preferred mobile phone to receive message through SMS for getting information related vegetable cultivation. Results regarding extent of utilization of extension advisory services maximum number of the respondents (40.00%) had high extent of utilization of extension advisory services for cultivation of vegetables. It was found that social participation, economic motivation and credibility had positive and significant relationship with extent of utilization of extension advisory services. The opinion of the respondents regarding Constraints faced by vegetable growers in utilizing extension advisory services revealed that lack of updated information (93%), lack of technical guidance (88%), irregular visit by extension worker (87%), Poor connectivity of networks and purchasing barrier for farm inputs (86%) and Poor communication skills of extension worker (84%) were major constraints faced by vegetable growers. Thus, on the basis of findings public and private organizations can ameliorate the extension system and provide better extension advisory services to the vegetable growers.
Open Access
A study on utilization of ICT tools by farmers of Kumaon division of Uttarakhand
(G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, District Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand. PIN - 263145, 2022-08) Shreya; Rana, Kiran
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) consists of technologies that provide access to information through communication. The agriculture information is extensive, interdisciplinary and specific to different agro climatic zones and needs a suitable information dissemination system for its effective use. With the revolution in ICT sector and increase in the possession of ICT tools and devices, it has gained wide popularity. Over the years, its user base has grown tremendously, and ICT technologies are being used for a variety of tasks, including information, education, and entertainment. Numerous new technologies or enhanced farming methods that are location and need specific are being created to promote agriculture and the development of farmers. The farmers have become extremely advanced and less reliant on others for goods and services with the mobilization of agriculture from traditional to modern pattern. There needs become more complex and diversified. The advancements in ICT can be utilized for providing accurate, timely, relevant information and services to the farmers, thereby facilitating better adoption of these technologies to make agriculture profitable. The effectiveness of ICT tools relied largely on the extent to which they are utilized and helpful to the user farmers upon the practicality and adaptability of information furnished. Therefore, utilization of ICT tools and usefulness of the information or messages are the necessary components in the effective usage of ICT. In order to make effective use of ICT tools into agricultural services it is necesssary to know the extent of utilization of ICT tools by the farmers. Thus, keeping these facts in view, the present study was undertaken to find out the socio-economic, psychological and communication characteristics of farmers, extent of utilization of ICT tools by farmers, relationship between socio-economic, psychological and communication characteristics of farmers with their extent of utilization of ICT tools and constraints perceived by them in the utilization of ICT tools. The study was conducted in Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand. Four villages from the two selected blocks were selected by using chit method of simple random sampling and PPS method was used to select the respondents. The total respondents were 120 farmers. The data was collected with the help of pre-tested interview schedule. Analysis of the data was done with the help of different statistical tools like frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, coefficient of correlation and t- test. Descriptive research design was used for the study. The findings of the study revealed that majority of the respondents (65.00%) were in the age group of 36 to 58 years, most of them (98%) were male and about 51.67 per cent of the respondents were educated up to high school. Majority of the respondents (75.83%) belonged to medium sized family and about 70 per cent of them had medium total annual income. The data revealed that slightly less than half of the respondents (40.83%) had semi-medium land holding. Majority of the respondents (69.17%) had medium farming experience and medium level of social participation (73.33%). The data regarding attitude of farmers towards ICT tools revealed that about 56.67 per cent of the respondents had favourable attitude towards ICT tools. It was also found that all the respondents owned smart phone. Majority of the respondents (63.33%) had medium mass media exposure and medium information seeking behaviour (79.17%). It was observed that 70 per cent of the respondents had medium extent of utilization of ICT tools. The variables such as age, annual income, farming experience, attitude towards ICT tools, mass media exposure and information seeking behaviour had positive and significant relationship with extent of utilization of ICT tools by farmers. There was no significant relationship between education, family size, land holding and social participation with extent of utilization of ICT tools by farmers. The major constraints faced by the respondents were high cost of ICT tools, high cost of servicing of ICT tools and insufficient servicing centres of ICT tools in the village. The findings of the present study will be of use to extension personnel and scientists to orient their work on major thrust area which are profitable and applicable. The study will also be useful for making awareness about utilization of ICT tools.
Open Access
Women empowerment through backyard poultry farming in Kumaon division of Uttarakhand
(G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, District Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand. PIN - 263145, 2022-08) Yadav, Shivani; Rana, Kiran
In India, 85 per cent of rural women are actively engaged in agriculture still they have no ownership of land and have remained confined as workers throughout the decades. The rank of India in Global Gender Gap Index (2022) report was 135th out of 146 countries in the world. Thus, there is a need to look for subsidiary sources of income for women without creating any inconvenience for them. Backyard poultry is a viable option as it can be carried out easily in the backyards by women while they continue focusing on their children and household responsibilities. It will empower the women along with alleviating livelihood vulnerability and gender inequality. Women empowerment refers to increasing the social, cultural, psychological, economic and technological strengths of individuals. Therefore, the present study attempted to find out the socio-economic, communication and psychological characteristics, extent of empowerment, relationship between the selected profile characteristics and extent of empowerment and constraints faced by the farm women in backyard poultry farming. The study was conducted in Kumaon division of Uttarakhand. Gadarpur block of Udham Singh Nagar district was selected purposively, three villages were selected randomly from the block. A total of 92 respondents were selected from the villages via purposive method of sampling. Pre-tested interview schedule was used for data collection and descriptive research design was employed to meet the objectives of the study. The findings of the study revealed that majority of the respondents were of middle age (26 to 46 years), almost all were married, had education up to middle school (35.87%) and belonged to general category (60.87%). The findings further revealed that majority (53.84%) were farmers by occupation, had a medium family size (4 to 8 members) and had medium level (69.57%) of social participation. Majority had medium experience in poultry farming. About three-fourth (75%) earned a medium annual family income and medium level (64.13%) of income from backyard poultry farming i.e., BYPF. Majority (86.96%) had a medium flock size, 71.74 per cent had medium marketing behavior, 61.96 per cent had received no training in BYPF, 73.91 per cent had medium information seeking behavior, 67.50 per cent had medium risk preference, 73.91 per cent had medium economic motivation and 59.78 per cent had medium decision-making ability. Most of the respondents had high level of social and cultural empowerment and majority had medium level of psychological, economic and technological empowerment respectively. Overall empowerment was of medium level in majority (55.43%) of the respondents. The findings related to the relationship between selected characteristics and extent of empowerment revealed that age, family size, annual family income, flock size and risk preference had no significant relationship whereas education had negative and significant relationship with extent of empowerment. On the other hand, social participation, poultry farming experience, information seeking behavior, training exposure, economic motivation and decision-making ability had positively significant relationship with extent of empowerment. Majority of the respondents reported attack of predators, lack of necessary training and lack of government support and subsidies as the major constraints.
Open Access
A study on adoption of improved dairy farming practices by dairy farmers in Kumaon division of Uttarakhand
(G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, 2022-08) Khurana, Priya; Khurana, Priya; Kandpal, Arpita Sharma; Kandpal, Arpita Sharma
Livestock sector contributes 4.11 per cent GDP (20th Livestock Census 2019). According to United States Department Agriculture 2018, 80 million households were engaged in dairy farming and majority of them are small scale, marginal farmers. The dairy farming has been considered as a potential means of employment and socio economic development for people in rural areas. Uttarakhand trails behind from highest milk producing states due to less growth rate in milk production(Chand,2017), focused should be given to the improved dairy farming to increase milk production and development of dairy industry. The present study was conducted in Kumaon division of Uttarakhand state. Udham Singh Nagar district was purposively selected as locale of study because it has highest milk production in Kumaon division. For the selection of block, Rudrapur and Sitarganj blocks were selected by chit method of Simple Random Sampling. Two villages were selected from each selected block by random sampling. Total 100 respondents from these villages were selected through purposive sampling method. The statistical techniques such as percentage, mean, frequency, weighted mean score, standard deviation, t-paired test were used for data interpretation. The findings of the study reported that majority (62 %) of the respondents were middle aged, 29 per cent were educated till high school level. It was found that 53 per cent of the farmers had medium family size i.e.3-6 family member and 36 per cent had small land holdings (1-2 hectares). Majority of the respondents (72%) had medium herd size (3-7). About 54 per cent of the respondents had dairy farming as primary occupation. Majority of the respondents (66%) had medium annual income (Rs.241888-Rs.559111) and 80 per cent of the respondents were having medium milk production (4.5-16 litres). About 59 per cent of the respondents had medium dairy farming experience (9-25 years). Majority of the respondents (73%) had medium social participation (1.5-3). Total 69 per cent of the respondents had medium source of information (12-15) and 68 per cent showed medium economic motivation (12-17). It was revealed that 63 per cent of the respondents were having medium risk preference (16-23). Majority of the respondents (71%) have overall medium extent of adoption of improved dairy farming practices (29-34). It was resulted that respondents with higher education, higher land holdings, higher dairy farming experience, higher annual income, higher milk production higher social participation, higher risk preference and higher economic motivation tends to have more extent of adoption of improved dairy farming practices as they are found to have a significant and positive relationship with extent of adoption of dairy farming practices. The major constraints faced by dairy farmers were lack of trainings received and low prices of milk and milk products. The research study provide an in depth understanding about extent of adoption of improved dairy farming practices which would help extension agencies, livestock officers to redesign their activities for the transfer of recommended practices related to dairy farming to the dairy farmers.
Open Access
A study on training needs of mushroom growers in Nainital district of Uttarakhand
(G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, District Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand. PIN - 263145, 2022-08) Joshi, Akansha; Kandpal, Arpita Sharma
Total 70 percent of rural households depend primarily on Agriculture for their livelihood with 82 percent of farmers being small and marginal (Economic Survey 2021). Sources of income improvement for farmers is shift from farm to non-farm occupation as Dairy Poultry, Apiculture, Mushroom production, Piggery, Sericulture and Fishery. Uttarakhand has a huge and unwind potential for mushroom production as its climate cold and humid support mushroom growth and development. (State specific strategy, 2022 Doubling farmers income, ICAR). According to Karthik and Hamsalakshmi (2017), Mushroom Farming as an income source is helpful to stop migration. Total 60 percent of population in Nainital district depends on agriculture as primary source of livelihood. The main constraints faced by mushroom growers are mainly lack of technical know-how, lack of marketing channels, lack of availability of spawns and compost etc. (Shirur et al. 2016). The ratio between extension workers and farmers is quite wide (1:1000) due to which information gap prevails. To bridge the gap between the information sources and the beneficiaries, information and training needs of the beneficiaries is the essential step to formulate and implement any programmee and policies in thearea. Due to lack of need based training programs, mushroom growers are facing many problems. Thus, there is an urgent need to access, analyze and prioritize the needs of mushroom growers in this region. The study entitled “A study on training needs of mushroom growers in Nainital district of Uttarakhand” has been proposed to study the training needs and constraints of mushroom growers. A total of 120 respondents were selected through PPS sampling method, with the help of Pradhan, block officers and K.V.K personnel’s. Prestructured interview schedule was use for data collection for the present study. The statistical tools as frequency, arithmetic mean, percentage, calculated weighted mean scores, standard deviation, t-test, correlation coefficient and garrett ranking method were used to analyze the data collected for significant interpretation. The finding of the study reported that majority (68%) of the respondents were middle aged. Major portion of the sample size i.e.75 per cent were male respondents. About 41 percent of the respondents had attained formal education upto high school. It was found that majority (51.66) of the respondents belong to joint family system. The results indicate that 52 percent of the respondents depend primarily on farming along with mushroom cultivation for their livelihood security. The figures indicates that majority (75.83%) of the respondents were categorized in medium landholding (0.5-2.87 ha) category. According to the results, majority (68.33%) of the respondents falls under the medium category of annual income that is roughly 2.5 to 4.6 lakh per year. It was observed that majority (68.33%) of the respondents were categorized in the medium income category in case of annual income of the respondents category According to the figures analyzed it was observed major portion (68.33%) of the sample surveyed falls under medium experience with 2- 4.5 years of experience. It was also revealed that majority (68.33%) of the respondents had medium level of extension agency contact. When inquired about interpersonal of information seeking behavior, it was revealed that most of the respondents (60.83%) had medium level of interpersonal information seeking behavior. The training needs of the mushroom growers were assessed on the basis of Weighted Mean Score for every sub area. On the basis of ranking subareas were prioritized. Using garrett ranking method constrains faced by respondents were analyzed and ranked which shows lack of infrastructure as first ranked and lack of motivation as least ranked constraints faced by mushroom farmers in the region.
Open Access
Attitude of farmers towards organic farming in Garhwal division of Uttarakhand
(G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, District Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand. PIN - 263145, 2022-08) Purohit, Himani; Rana, Kiran
Growing Indian population is causing demographic pressure on agriculture sector in order to maintain food security. Thus, increasing crop yield to meet the rising demand for food grains is a critical issue. However, increased crop yield due to the application of pesticides and fertilizers d n a y t i v i t c u d o r p l a r u t l u c i r g a o t t a e r h t t n a c i f i n g i s a d e s o p s a h n o i t u l o v e r n e e r g e h t g n i r u d d e c u d o r t nis ustainability in the long run. Organic farming appears to be the best substitute for conventional farming, which is entirely dependent on chemicals. Uttarakhand was the first and only province in the country to implement a comprehensive organic farming policy in the year 2000 and in 2019 it became the first state in India to pass an Organic Agriculture Act. The area under organic farming is increasing but still many farmers are yet to adopt organic farming in Uttarakhand, despite several government policies and interventions. The farmers may be familiar of the advantages of going organic, but what matters most is their attitude and readiness to convert to organic farming. Hence, there is a need to understand the attitude of farmers towards organic farming. The present study was conducted in the Garhwal division of Uttarakhand. Dehradun district was selected purposively since it had maximum promotional programs by government for organic farming and Kalsi block was selected purposively. Three villages from Kalsi block were selected randomly. Descriptive research design was used for the present study. A sample of 120 respondents was selected through PPS method. Pre-tested interview schedule was used for data collection. Statistical techniques frequency, percentage, coefficient of correlation and t-test were used to analyze the data for meaningful interpretation. The findings of the study revealed that most (94.17%) of the respondents were males with maximum respondents (45.83%) belonging to young aged group. Vast majority (93.33%) had small sized landholding and were educated up to middle level of schooling (27.5%). Majority (61.66%) of the respondents belonged to medium sized family, had low annual income (70.83%), had low social participation (91.67%), had medium mass media exposure (48.33%), had low extension agency contact (57.50%), had high level of scientific orientation (45.83%) and had medium level of economic motivation (52.50%). With respect to attitude towards organic farming most of the respondents (43.33%) had neutral attitude. Variables like education, annual income, social participation, mass media ownershi p and exposure, extension agency contact, scientific orientation and economic motivation were found to have significant positive relationship with attitude towards organic farming. Age, land holding and family size were found to have non-significant negative relationship with attitude towards organic farming. Initial yield loss was the major economic constraint, inadequate availability or shortage of quality disease free seeds/planting materials was the major technological constraint, interference of middle men in the market was the major marketing constraint and erratic onset of monsoon rain was the major environmental constraint. The findings of the study will be useful to extension workers, research workers and administrators as it provides them with the adequate knowledge about the existing gap in organic farming technologies used by the farmers and will enable them to improve their approach of working with the farmers.

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