Impact of Agromet Advisory Services on Farmers’ Operational Decisions Related to Crop Cultivation in Thiruvananthapuram District of Kerala

Indian agriculture is highly vulnerable to climate change and weather based agromet advisory services are very much crucial for day to day management of farm operations, efficient input usage and enhancing the crop production. Therefore the present study was undertaken to ascertain the impact of agromet advisory services on farmers’ decision making for various farm operations in Thiruvananthapuram District of Kerala state. Two blocks of Thiruvananthapuram District of Kerala were chosen randomly and after ensuring that the villages were not receiving any services from the Agromet Field Unit (AMFU) situated in Thiruvananthapuram, two experimental and two control villages were chosen from each block. From each experimental village, 15 farmers were selected randomly as beneficiaries and given treatment i.e. Agromet Advisory Bulletins twice a week (Tuesday and Friday) for 6 months through a WhatsApp group, and 15 non-beneficiary farmers were chosen randomly from each control village. Total sample size of the study was 120 farmers. The impact of the Agromet Advisory services was assessed on farmers’ operational decisions in Banana, Vegetable and Coconut cultivation using Difference in difference quasi-experimental design and regression model. The study revealed that despite of having positive treatment effect on almost all the farm operations, treatment effect was found only on land preparation, seed sowing, scheduling of irrigation, fertilizer application and spray scheduling of pesticides followed by the experimental group farmers.