Perception Dynamics of Farmers Affecting Sustainability of Mustard Production: An Analytical Study

Abstract

Oilseed sector as a whole and rapeseed–mustard in particular, has witnessed a significant increase in production in the last decade. However research results show that there is vast scope to increase the present productivity level of rapeseed-mustard in the country. Despite the technological advancement in mustard for last two decades to attain higher yields, the vast gap exists between the actual yields obtained at farmer’s field and the yield obtained at the research farms which shows the low adoption of recommended technologies by the farmers. The importance of agricultural technologies in the development process cannot be overemphasized. This study has sought to ascertain respondents’ perceptions on reasons affecting sustainability of mustard production based on sample of 120 farmer respondents from Bharatpur and Agra district. The study reported that adoption of time of sowing recommendation was maximum with 82.5 MPS followed by irrigation practices (78.2 MPS).The adoption of improved varieties of mustard was also high (75.7 MPS). The level of adoption of seed rate & spacing (66.7 MPS) and harvesting & threshing (56.9 MPS) was medium. There was very low adoption in case of pest management, soil treatment, and disease management with MPS 16.9, 10.8 and 8.8, respectively. The study reported that overall and important constraints experienced by the respondents were, low selling price (93.2%) and high cost of cultivation (88.8%) as economic, non-availability of pure seeds at sowing time (88.1%) and inadequate supply of fertilizers (83.8%) as infrastructural, high temperature at the time of sowing (88.8%) and poor fertility of soil (73.2%) as agro-climatic, lack of technological know-how (87.5%) and lack of visit by extension personnel to the village (84.4%) as technological constraints. Therefore, a suitable strategy involving all concerned agencies should be devised to overcome these constraints to increase the level of adoption of recommended practices.