Impact Assessment of the KVK Cluster Frontline Demonstrations on Mustard Crop in Samba District of Jammu

Over the years the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) system has enlarged its spectrum of activities in agriculture and allied sectors from vocational training, frontline demonstrations, technology testing/refinement to bringing new concepts of entrepreneurship opportunities, convergence of extension activities, integrated farming system, crop diversification, value addition, biodiversity conservation, organic farming etc. Empirical evidences have highlighted that KVK System has positively impacted the rural farming community in terms of income, yield, productivity, sale price and above all capacity for optimal utilization of resources etc. In this line, a study was carried during the year 2019-20, to assess the impact of KVK’s cluster frontline demonstration on mustard productivity and income of farmers in Samba district of Jammu. Cluster frontline demonstrations involve selection of farmers through interactive meetings, organizing these farmers into groups(10-15 per group), identifying gaps in adoption of existing package and practices, conducting frontline demonstration of newly developed or refined package of practices in farmers field, supply of required inputs in the form of high yielding seed, fertilizer, insecticides, weedicides etc, regular monitoring and technical support by KVK experts and at last impact assessment in terms of yield, productivity, selling price, quality etc. The data for the study was collected from farmers through personnel interview method. A total of 120 farmers were selected through multistage random sampling out of which 60 farmers were beneficiaries of KVK cluster frontline demonstrations and 60 were non-beneficiary farmers. The results of the study revealed that the average productivity per hectare of mustard was 12.25 quintal in case of beneficiaries of cluster frontline demonstrations as compared to 8.06 quintal in case of non beneficiaries. Further, an average income of Rs 63284/beneficiary/hectare was received from the sale of mustard crop as compared to Rs 41106/non beneficiary/hectare. From the results it is clear, that frontline demonstrations along with the material and technical support from KVKs have played an important role in increasing productivity and income per unit of land. In addition, the results have indicated and proved that KVK through its spectrum of activities are having a positive impact on farming community in terms of productivity per unit of land, income from agriculture, sustainable use of land and resource conservation.