Consumers’ perception regarding adoption of PAU tensiometer for irrigation scheduling in agriculture

The Indian state of Punjab pioneered Green Revolution along with some other states, transforming India into a food-surplus country. The state, later, witnessed serious consequences of intensive farming using chemicals and pesticides and taking two resource-intensive crops per year from the same soil. This involved increased groundwater irrigation and cultivation of water-intensive crop, rice, in Punjab which never was its native place. This study attempts to understand the consumers’ perception regarding adoption of PAU Tensiometer for resource management and irrigation scheduling in agriculture and how the adoption level varies among various age groups, landholding sizes and income groups. An exploratory research study was undertaken and farmers’ responses were recorded using a well-structured, disguised questionnaire. The-farmers selected for the study belonged to different age groups, landholding sizes and income groups in order to represent the whole population effectively. The study found-out that most of the respondents had the thought that standing water was better for the crop. A majority of the respondents practiced irrigation scheduling through traditional-methods instead of any scientific aid. The old farmers, farmers belonging to marginal-and small landholding sizes and medium income groups were observed to have higher willingness to adopt the technology as compared to others. Age, landholding sizes and-income groups had significant effect on the awareness and perception of respondents-towards adoption of PAU Tensiometer for resource management in agriculture.