Adoption of Resource Conservation Technologies for Sustainable Production: Evidence of Potential Impact from Haryana

Resource conservation technologies (RCTs) are a win-win situation for farmers as well as environment owing to their potential benefits. The study was conducted during 2013–14 Rabi crop season with 120 purposively selected RCT farmers from sixvillages of Kurukshetra district in Haryana. Findings indicated that a majority of the farmers (95.24 percent) reported saving of time under zero tillage sowing. A majority of them (51.20 percent) used same quantity of seed rate, about 48.8percent of the farmers found more germination under zero tillage, 46.43percent observed increase in broadleaf weeds under zero tillage. About 26 percent of farmers harvested similar yield while 61.9percent recorded more yield as compared to conventional tillage. Adopters further recorded increase in soil fertility (79.76 percent), organic carbon (83.33 percent) and increased moisture retention capacity of soil (84.53 percent), less lodging (85.71 percent) and avoidance of terminal heat (61.90 percent). Almost all the farmers used similar quantity of wheat seed under rotary tillage as compared to conventional tillage. Around 45percent of the respondents observed better germination under rotary tillage. Most of the farmers (77.63 percent) witnessed a decline in the cost of cultivation and 78.94 percent got more yield under rotary tillage. The time for leveling of one acre of land ranged from 1 hour to 3.5 hours in the study area. Due to the adoption of laser land leveler, there was around 2–3 percent increase in area under cultivation, saving of one-third time to irrigate crop and 30-40percent water saving. All the farmers (100 percent) recorded more yield and less lodging (84.38 percent) in laser-leveled fields. The study recommends for mass adoption of RCTs to reap the potential benefits paving way for sustainable production.