Amrit Kaur Mahal

Socio-Economic Factors Affecting Adoption Behaviour of Farmers for Net-House Vegetable Cultivation in Punjab

This paper explores the impact of various socio-economic characteristics of farmers in adoption of net house vegetable cultivation. The study is based on the primary data collected from a sample of 120 farmers consisting of 60 net house and 60 open field vegetable growers. The data were collected for the year 2011–12. Logistic Regression Model was used to empirically quantify the relative influence of various socio-economic variables in the adoption of net house cultivation. The socio-economic variables considered were age, family size, farm size, education, income, extension contacts and membership of farmers ’professional societies. The analysis brought out that the income from other sources than crop income, farmers having extension contacts and membership of professional societies significantly enhance the adoption of net house technology.

Factors Discriminating Credit Growth: A Comparison of Punjab and Kerala

The role of credit in commercial agriculture is inimitable. The study examined the factors discriminating credit growth in Punjab and Kerala from1983-84 to 2011–12. The credit growth is highly influenced by factors like net irrigated area per 1000 hectare of net sown area and average size of operational holdings. The reason was the dependency of Punjab on credit for irrigation needscompared to a rain fedagriculture in Kerala. Moreover the smaller size of the operational land holding in Kerala limits tractorization or other forms of mechanization. The next important factors differentiating the credit growth in both the states were area under high yielding varieties and fertilizer consumption per 1000 hectares of net sown area which had a substantial impact on the inter-state credit growth variability. The high input intensive agriculture in Punjab due to the advent of green revolution could be the root cause. Other factors like GSDP at constant prices, per capita income and number of tractors per 1000 hectare of net sown area also discriminate the credit growth. The main reason for the difference in credit growth between the two states is the variation in the climatic conditions, land distribution and cropping pattern.

Adoption behaviour of resource conservation technologies in paddy cultivation in Punjab

The study revealed that the adoption of direct seeded rice and mechanical transplanting of paddy technologies were adopted by large farmers having, higher off farm income and extension contacts with the officials of PAU and State Agriculture Department than their counterparts non-adopters. In the case of DSR adopter farmers, the yield was lowest at 6481 and 2962 kg per ha for common paddy and basmati, respectively and highest for MT at 7259 and 4713 kg per ha, respectively; yield varied between 6760 kg to 7109 kg for CM for common paddy and 3705 to 4115 kg for basmati. The reason of adoption of these technologies was save time and save water ranked first and second in DSR and solve labour problem ranked first in MT technology. Reasons for non-adoption were more weeds in case of DSR and costly machines and lack of awareness in MT. Farmers are willing to adopt mechanical transplanters provided the machinery is available with cooperative societies or on rent. More technical knowledge is required for the adoption of DSR technology. Among the problems faced in paddy cultivation, labour problem and high wage scored first and second rank, respectively in common paddy and volatility of price and only private procurement in basmati cultivation.