Utilization of Information Sources by Bt Cotton Farmers in Punjab

Scientific Farm information is a crucial non-monetary input for realizing potential productivity of the crops. The present study was conducted to analyze the utilization of information sources by Bt cotton farmers in Punjab state. A total 150 cotton farmers were selected from three major cotton growing districts of the Punjab state. It was found that most of the respondents were falling in the age group of 43 to 56 years and were matriculates. Nearly half of the respondents possessed the medium size of operational land holding. Majority of the respondents found to be dependent on the non-institutional sources of credit. Study revealed that among ICT tools, weather applications were the most popular for getting information on weather conditions and used by 24.00 percent of the respondents. Nearly ten percent of the respondents used other ICT applications such as WhatsApp (7.33 percent) and Facebook (11.33 percent) for seeking agricultural information. It was also found that pesticide dealers and private companies ’representatives were the major sources for seeking information by respondents. Majority of the respondents (82.00 percent) were members of agricultural co-operative societies in their villages. Farm literature, TV telecast and radio broadcasts were some other information sources utilized by the Bt cotton farmers in Punjab state. It was also found that area and productivity of Bt cotton at the fields of respondents started decreasing gradually due to decreased yields, price fluctuations, leading to lower gross income of the respondents. Study suggests that the pesticide dealers and personnel of agricultural cooperative societies need to be regularly trained for providing scientific farm information to the Bt cotton farmers of the state.