PRAVEENA, P.L.R.J.KALYAN BABU, K2020-02-112020-02-112019http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810142873D5821Agricultural productivity in rainfed areas continues to remain low and unstable due to weather aberrations and recurrent droughts undermine the food, fodder and livelihood security of the rural mass. Rainfall is the key variable influencing crop productivity in rainfed farming. Intermittent and prolonged droughts are a major cause of yield reduction. To overcome the drought farmers have to be ready to adopt climate resilient agriculture technologies. Ananthapuram is the second most drought-affected district of India. Keeping in view of the above, the present study entitled “Impact of National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture Project in Ananthapuram district of Andhra Pradesh” was undertaken. The study was framed in such a manner to analyse the profile characteristics of farmers with knowledge, extent of adoption and impact of climate resilient technologies and to find out the relationship between the selected independent variables and dependent variable. Ex-post-facto research was followed in the present investigation. Ananthapuram district of scarce rainfall zone was purposively selected as the KVK, Reddipally located in this district has been demonstrating climate resilient technologies through NICRA project. Out of 64 mandals in Ananthapuram district, four mandals were selected. Among four mandals, two mandals Singanamala and Narpala wherein NICRA is being implemented and two non NICRA implemented mandals namely Bukkarayasamudram and Garladinne were selected by simple random sampling. Six villages were selected wherein three were NICRA beneficiary and three were non NICRA xiv villages. The three NICRA implemented villages from two mandals were Chakrayapeta and Peravali (Singanamala mandal) and Chamaluru (Narpala mandal). The three non NICRA villages from two mandals were Siddaramapuram and Pasalur (Bukkarayasamudram mandal) and Kanampalle (Garladinne mandal). From each of selected village, twenty respondents were selected by following simple random sampling procedure. Thus the sample comprises of 60 NICRA beneficiary farmers and 60 non beneficiary farmers, thus making a total of 120 respondents. Majority of the NICRA farmers were middle aged, educated upto high school level, medium to large farmers with high to medium farming experience, medium to high annual income, mass media exposure, risk orientation, training undergone, economic motivation, diversification, fair to good cropping pattern, medium to low social participation, irrigation status, high to medium information seeking behavior and low to high cropping intensity. In case of non NICRA farmers majority were middle aged, educated upto high school level, medium to large farmers with medium to high farming experience, medium to low annual income, mass media exposure, risk orientation, training undergone, information seeking behavior, economic motivation, diversification, fair to poor cropping pattern, low to medium social participation, irrigation status, and low to medium cropping intensity. Majority of the NICRA farmers had medium to high level of knowledge, extent of adoption and impact whereas majority of non NICRA farmers had medium to low level of knowledge, extent of adoption and low to medium level of impact was observed. The independent variables education, farming experience, annual income, risk orientation, social participation, training undergone, information seeking behavior, economic orientation, cropping pattern, diversification, cropping intensity and irrigation status were positively significant with level of knowledge of climate resilient technologies whereas age and mass media exposure were positively non significant and farm size was negatively non significant with level of knowledge of climate resilient technologies. All the fifteen selected independent variables put together explained about 76.40 per cent variation in the knowledge of the respondents on climate resilient technologies. The independent variables education, farming experience, annual income, mass media exposure, risk orientation, social participation, training undergone, information seeking behavior, economic orientation, cropping pattern, diversification, cropping intensity and irrigation status were positively significant with extent of adoption of climate resilient technologies whereas age was positively non significant and farm size was negatively non significant with extent of adoption of climate resilient technologies. All the selected fifteen independent variables put together explained about 78.70 per cent variation in the extent of adoption of climate resilient technologies. xv The independent variables education, farming experience, annual income, mass media exposure, risk orientation, social participation, training undergone, information seeking behavior, economic orientation, cropping pattern, diversification, cropping intensity and irrigation status were positively significant with impact of climate resilient technologies whereas age and farm size was positively non significant with impact of climate resilient technologies. All the fifteen independent variables put together explained about 87.70 per cent variation in impact of climate resilient technologies. Regarding socio personal constraints expressed by the respondents inability to accept new practices was ranked first followed by more interested to follow conventional practices, lack of awareness about climate change, inability to take risk, increasing labour scarcity, illiteracy of the farmer and small size of the farm. The financial constraints expressed by the respondents in the rank order were lack of credit/capital, high cost of inputs, higher investment cost on farm implements, poor economic status of the farmer, lack of market access, inadequate institutional financial support and lack of savings. The technological constraints opined by the farmers in rank order were lack of knowledge on adaptation method, lack of access to irrigation water, lack of effective advisory system on climate change, lack of availability of improved seed, inadequate services through CHCs and lack of timely weather based information. The suggestions given by the respondents in rank order were regular training to farmers on various climate resilient technologies, provision of effective timely advisory system on weather and climate variability at village level, establishing, monitoring and maintenance of CHCs through Village Climate Risk Management Committees, provision of loans by government agencies/institutions at low interest rates, drought tolerant varieties to be made available with farmers through seed banks, ensuring public ware housing facilities in the vicinity of villages to avoid post harvest losses, prioritization of agricultural activities in MGNREGA to avoid labour scarcity. The synopsis of the study was presented by the head of the department at the State Level Technical Program meeting held at the University headquarters of Acharya N.G.Ranga Agricultural University in the month of May, 2018 and it was approved by the University authorities.en-USnullThesis