Farmers’ Behaviour towards Adopting Conservation Agricultural Practices in Wheat: A Study in Punjab and Haryana

Description of the topic

Attaining food security for a growing population and alleviating poverty while sustaining agricultural systems under the current scenario of depleting natural resources, negative impacts of climatic variability, spiraling cost of inputs and volatile food prices are the major challenges in front of Indian Agriculture. The tillage intensive conventional cereal-based cropping systems which is instrumental in achieving of self-sufficiency in food-grain production often led to emergence of second generation problems of green revolution viz., decline in soil organic matter, soil degradation, emergence of multi-nutrient deficiency, soil compaction, crop residue burning etc. leading towards non-sustainability in long-term. Conservation agriculture can be seen as a new way forward for conserving resources and enhancing productivity to achieve the goals of sustainable agriculture, which demands a strong knowledge base and a combination of institutional and technological innovations. Conservation Agriculture (CA) technologies involves the minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil cover through crop residues, or cover crops, and crop diversification for achieving higher productivity.

In India, applying CA practices in wheat has resulted in enhancing the yield, reducing the cost of production and lessening the mining effect of the soil nutrients when grown under rice-wheat cropping system (Bhan & Behera, 2014). In Indian scenario, the penetration of CA technologies is gaining momentum at a slower rate. In spite of these multi-dimensional benefits of CA, its spread and adoption in India is still very low. Most of the studies on CA are mainly concentrated on its adoption among the farmers in India and their results reveal a low adoption rate. Their is still a lack of clear evidence to understand why/how farmers voluntarily adopt improved technologies, sustainable practices and here complex behavior plays an important role to influence the ultimate decision process of farmers. Hence, their is an urgent need to shift the focus towards behavioral aspects. Various social science constructs like knowledge, perception, behavior of farmers with respect to CA practices, institutional role needs to be measured through standardized tests and scales, which are largely ignored areas in scientific discourse. Keeping all these issue in the frontline the present research study has been undertaken entitled “Farmers’ Behaviour towards Adopting Conservation Agricultural Practices in Wheat: A Study in Punjab and Haryana”.

Objectives

To assess the knowledge and attitude of farmers of Punjab and Haryana regarding CA practices in wheat
To study behaviour of farmers regarding adoption of CA practices in wheat
To analyse factors promoting the uptake of CA practices by farmers
To explore the role of institutions in promoting CA practices among farmers
To delineate the perceived constraints in the adoption of CA practices by farmers and framing suitable strategies

Work expectations

The spread of CA technologies are taking place in India in the irrigated regions, in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP), where rice-wheat (RW) cropping systems dominate. Hence, purposively the region of IGP is selected as the locale for the study. Among cereals, wheat is the second largest cereal growing crop in India, and zero tilled wheat cultivation is practiced extensively in the states of Punjab and Haryana. Two states are selected purposively: Punjab and Haryana falls in this IGP Zone. After performing thorough and extended review of literature and going through pilot survey, two districts will be chosen from each state purposively based on the relevance of the conservation agriculture practice.

Activities

Sampling Procedure:

Two States : Punjab and Haryana will be selected purposively
From each state, one district will be selected based on the prevalence of conservation agriculture practice.
From each district, three blocks will be selected randomly ( Simple Random sampling)
From each block, 4 villages will be selected randomly (SRS)
From each village, 5 farmers practicing CA will be chosen randomly and 5 farmers practicing conventional agriculture will be chosen randomly for the purpose of interview.(SRS)
Hence, total sample size will be 240.
Institutes that will be selected: KVKs, State Departments of Agriculture, ATMA, SAUs concerned, CSSRI Karnal, CIMMYT India (for the purpose of studying institutional role) ( proposed)
Final list of institutions will be fixed after pilot study and having focus group discussion with the farmers

Required skills

Objective 1: To assess the knowledge and attitude of farmers of Punjab and Haryana regarding CA practices in wheat

Measurement of knowledge: Knowledge test and Knowledge Index will be developed. Attitude measurement: Summated rating Likert type scale on attitude towards CA will be constructed and it will be measured on a 5 point continuum. Effect of socio-economic, psychological and communication variables on the knowledge and attitude of the farmers will be studied using regression model.

Variables:

Independent Variables: Age, Gender, Marital Status, Education, Family Type, Family Size, Total Annual Family Income, Occupation, Farming Experience, Size of Landholding, Credit Seeking Behaviour, Cropping intensity, Scientific Orientation, Risk Orientation, Innovativeness, Change Proneness, Ecological Consciousness, Extension Contact, Mass Media Exposure, Social Participation, Opinion Leadership, Information Passing Frequency
Dependent Variables: Knowledge about CA practices: Knowledge test will be developed, Attitude towards CA practices (Attitude Scale will be developed), CA adoption behaviour (Technology Acceptance Model)
Data Collection Techniques: Interview method (Using semi-structured interview schedule, knowledge test, attitude scale), Focus Group Discussion
Statistical Analysis: Descriptive analysis (Frequency, Percentage, Arithmetic Mean, Standard Deviation, Coefficient of Correlation, Regression Analysis), Inferential Statistics (Testing of hypothesis using parametric tests or NPT based on the normalcy of data), Structural Equational Modelling

Required skills:

Objective 1: To assess the knowledge and attitude of farmers of Punjab and Haryana regarding CA practices in wheat

Objective 2: To study behaviour of farmers regarding adoption of CA practices in wheat

In this particular objective, Technology Acceptance Model will be used with minor modifications for the current study to measure behavioural intentions, factors affecting that and ultimately predicting behaviour towards CA. TAM model is one of the most influential extensions of Ajzen and Fishbein's theory of reasoned action (TRA) and theory of planned behaviour (TPB). TAM provides a basis for discovering the impact of external variables on intermediate variables like beliefs, values, attitudes and ultimately the behaviour of individual.

Objective 3: To analyse factors promoting the uptake of CA practices by farmers

Different factors promoting CA practices will be identified after thorough review of literature and focus group discussion with the farmers. After coming out with a list of factors, it will be analysed using Principal Component Analysis.

Objective 4: To explore the role of institutions in promoting CA practice among farmers

First institutions will be categorized into different groups, types of services provided by the institutions (input, consultancy, advisory, capacity building etc.), timeliness of services, quality and utility of services provided by the institutes will be studied. Along with this, importance of institutions and their networking in promoting CA among farmers will be studied using institutional networking analysis.

Objective 5: To delineate the perceived constraints in the adoption of CA practices by farmers and framing suitable strategies

Constraints or barriers will be categorized into different groups: social, financial, technical, infrastructural, psychological, institutional etc. and will be measured using ranking techniques and appropriate strategies will be formulated against each constraint after discussing with experts and farmers.

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