Enhanced Water Productivity in Agriculture for Livelihoods: An Analysis of Capacity Building of Farmers through Training

The present study was undertaken to assess the capacity building of farmers through on-farm training programmes conducted in eight districts of Odisha during the year 2011–12 by Directorate of Water Management, Bhubaneswar focusing on enhancement of water productivity in agriculture for livelihoods. On the basis of responses of 1305 farmers participated in training with respect to awareness and adoptability of the technologies before and after training, the analyses revealed that awareness level of 70.97% of the farmers increased (Awareness Index=57.04%), which was found to be significant at 1% level. Similarly, the mean adoptability of all the techniques as perceived by the farmers were found to be 49.71% (Adoptability Index =38.56%), which was also found to be significant at 1% level. Thus, the trainings built the capacity of farmers for adoption of scientific technologies to gain more productivity and income in agriculture with less use of water.