Adoption Level of Recommended Agricultural Practices by Punjab Farmers

Punjab is predominately an agrarian state and largest contributor of food grains to the central pool. In current scenario, though we have achieved great success in agricultural production and productivity and became not only self reliant but rather surplus producer of many agricultural commodities, but at the same time, we are facing a sort of crisis on many fronts. The rising cost of cultivation, stagnating yields, dwindling underground water reserves, pest resistance, resurgence of new weeds etc. are some of the concerns. To counter balance these issues farmers in the state were resorting to higher doses of nutrients, pesticides, irrigations etc. than the recommended levels. Then there are certain practices regarding residue disposal, seed treatment, soil testing etc. which also have a bearing on sustainability of state agriculture. It was found that though having good farming experience and education level, farmers of the state were not sticking to the recommended practices and resource use levels. Some constraints were cited by the sampled farmers regarding this aspect. These included higher doses of fertilizers and number of irrigations to enhance the productivity, spurious quality of pesticides leading to higher doses, stubble burning due to lack of viable alternative and low awareness about recommendation of soil testing etc. So it was found that farmers equipped with education and expertise in farming were by and large aware about the issues concerning agricultural development, but the constraints emerging mainly due to on-going mono-culture in agricultural production were posing a threat to sustainable growth in the state.