Problems and factors affecting adoption of natural farming in sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh

Natural farming supports agroecological principles, chemical free farming and sustainable farming. NF is also seen as the most cost effective farming and also known as “Zero Budget Natural Farming”. NF focus is to reduce cost of cultivation, improve food quality, chemical free food, improve soil fertility, food and nutritional security. The present study was carried out in Sirmour district of Himachal Pradesh by taking representative samples of 60 farmers through simple random sampling technique. This study mainly focused on the constraints and factors affecting adoption of Natural Farming. The problems were analyzed by using Garrett Ranking technique. The major problems were nonavailability of a specialized market (1st rank), labour intensive farming (2nd rank) and unfair price for produce in market (3rd rank). Also “disease occurrence” in the Natural Farming field was ranked lowest (15th rank) which means NF is successful in controlling diseases in the field. The multiple response percentage for various problems identified by Chi square test includes higher wage rate (70%), price fluctuation (56.67) labour intensive farming (56.60) and non availability of specialized market (58.53%). Factors affecting adoption of NF were measured by using Logistic Regression model. Significant variables for adoption of NF were increased gross returns, decreased pest attack in NF and increased soil fertility variables. They have a significant role for adoption of NF.