Sensitization Level of Extension Agents and Input Dealers towards Safe Pesticide Practices

Recent news of pesticide residues above permitted level in fruits and vegetables vitiated its demand in market due to the mounting concerns of food safety. Consumption of these commodities is vital for nutritional security and for development physically and mentally superior people. Injudicious use of pesticides at farm level is the prime culprit behind enhanced residue levels in agricultural commodities. Due to lack of awareness and other vested interest the farmers are not following the recommended practices, which indeed drain their good health. Their awareness attitude and decision making should be redirected towards more hygienic and healthy pesticide practices. Here comes the role of extension agents and input dealers. Sensitization level of these groups has an important bearing on farmers ’practices. Hence this study attempted to measure their sensitization after constructing a scale. The scale was constructed by adopting Likert method of summated rating, pilot tested on forty non-sample respondents and the final statements were selected following t test. The scale was administered to a random sample of 32 input dealers and 40 extension agents from Hapur, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, and Sonepat districts of U.P. and Haryana to measure their sensitization level. The results indicated that more than 90 per cent of extension agents have medium to high sensitization level, while near to 90 per cent of input dealers were falling in low to medium sensitization category. The difference was tested using Mann-Whitney U test and it was found statistically significant at less than five percent level of significance. The results are raising important alarm for taking remedial measures in spur of the movement to make the input dealers more sensitized, for, their sensitization would be reflected in farmers practices of pesticide use.