Farmers' reception to scientific indian gooseberry (emblica officinalis Gaertn.) plantation methods in the Aravalli Hills of Rajasthan

Though, Indian gooseberry (aonla) plantation in the Indian sub-continent is wide spread but its systematic cultivation is sparse. To have a considerable increase in the area under aonla cultivation, a lot of awareness is still required to be created among the farmers regarding the importance of this fruit in enhancement of nutrition among the population as well as a good source of income. Many NGOs are working to motivate the farmers to adopt the scientific plantation of aonla. Since BAIF, Udaipur had launched a European Union project in three tribal Panchayat Samities of Udaipur district, they wanted to know how far their advice, demonstrations and campaigns have been effective in terms of reception by the farmers towards knowledge enhancement and adoption. A total of 80 respondents were randomly selected from the identified villages. The results revealed that the majority of respondents (61.67%) had medium knowledge, and only 20 per cent of the respondents fell in low knowledge category. Further, majority of the respondents (63.33%) were in the medium adoption level regarding improved technology of aonla cultivation, while 20 per cent and 16.67 per cent respondents possessed poor and high adoption level respectively. It is recommended that intensive skill based training programmes should be organized by NGOs in collaboration with agricultural university in the jurisdiction of district Udaipur to minimize the adoption gap.