Factors contributing to groundwater consumption of vegetable farmers in Nadia district of West Bengal

Groundwater is an important part of the water cycle and is a valuable natural resource that provides a major source of water for the agricultural, household, and industrial applications. The present study portrays different factors, which are responsible for groundwater consumption of vegetable growers in the Nadia district of West Bengal by selecting one hundred and sixty respondents through simple random sampling keeping consideration of homogeneity in the land type, soil type, type of crops, variety, and seasons. The results depict that age, education, topography, farmers’ knowledge level, farmers’ attitude towards irrigation, production orientation economic motivation, improved water extraction mechanism, and method of irrigation are the major contributing factors in envisaging the amount of groundwater consumption when crop and land situations are constant. Nonetheless, for ensuring proper utilization of groundwater, education, changes in attitude, knowledge, and management aspects of groundwater irrigation of the farmers have to be given due attention during this time. Therefore, proper planning, decision making, and dissemination of relevant knowledge from experts’ level to farmers’ level through the capacity building are necessary.