Department of Agricultural Economics, Institute of Agril. Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-U.P.
A poor extension service has been identified as one of the major bottleneck in agricultural growth. Productivity enhancement is directly related to increased adoption of new technology. A World bank aided Diversified Agriculture Support Project (DASP) was implemented in the identified 157 blocks of 32 districts of the U.P. with objective of increasing agriculture productivity and production through support of UP's diversified production system, encouragement to privatization in agriculture and improvement in rural infrastructure. The mission of the project was to utilize unlimited potential of the state through participatory approaches, empowerment of farmers, development of rural infrastructure to support agriculture & allied enterprises for sustainable development.17986 Self Help Groups (SHGs) were formed to promote diversification of agriculture and its marketing out of which 3785 SHGs were actively involved in the marketing of agricultural produce and they were termed as Active Marketing Farmers' Interest Groups. The study was conducted to assess the impact of SHGs on technology dissemination and its adoption on farmers' field. It was observed that 67 percent farmers are using seed treatment followed by soil treatment (58 percent). 57 percent farmers are using HYV and 47 percent of gross cropped area was covered under soil testing. Efforts should be made to form more number of Farmers Interest Groups.
