Farmers’ Perception and Factors Influencing Adoption of Organic Farming

Organic farming in India has gained attention due to degradation of production resource base in the wake of increasing use of agro-chemicals and rising consciousness about safe food and health among the consumers. The present study was undertaken to delve into farmers’ perception about organic farming and to identify the factors determining the adoption of organic farming. The study was conducted in the states of Bihar and Kerala. Factor analysis was used to study the perception, while logistic regression was used to identify the factors determining the adoption of organic farming. Five factors having Eigen values greater than one were extracted with varimax rotation and Kaiser Normalization while using 15 statements related to organic farming. These five factors accounted for 63.65 per cent of total variance. The rotated factor loadings for each of the five factors ranged from 0.404 to 0.818. The findings revealed that the major themes of perception about organic farming among the farmers were related to economic, health, ecology, technology, and institutional support systems perspectives. Logistic regression revealed that the variables s age, access to training, environmental attitude, and risk orientation had positively significant influence on adoption decision for organic farming. The study indicated that opportunities for capacity building for organic farming technologies as well as sensitization towards environmental orientation should be promoted.