Factors affecting adoption of improved technologies of wheat cultivation

Wheat is one of the most important staple food grains of human race. India produces about 86.9 million tons of wheat per year which is about 12.34 per cent of world production. It is now the second largest producer of wheat in the world. Being the second largest in population, it is also the second largest in wheat consumption after China, with a huge and growing wheat demand. Rajasthan accounts for 9% of the total wheat production in India. The yield per ha of wheat is 2800 kg in Rajasthan which is low than states like Haryana (4000) and Punjab (4300). Wheat production in Rajasthan has been assumed to growth at 1% pa over the next 25 years. The existing yield gap is about 30 per cent of total production and is caused by a number of abiotic, biotic and socio-economic constraints. The existing yield gap can be bridged by adopting improved production practices, increasing supply of location-specific quality seeds, adoption of optimum input dosages and through active institutional support. Hence the Government of Rajasthan has rightly modified T&V system since January 1, 1993 and renamed it as Kisan Mandals and Kisan Seva Kendra. In this System unlike the T&V system the Village Extension Worker has to approach a group of 20 progressive farmers collectively rather than contacting 10 individual contact farmers. This group of 20 progressive farmers namely Kisan Mandal assembles once a fortnight on a fixed place and used to have discussion with Village Extension Worker on latest agricultural technologies. Besides this, a Kisan Seva Kendra is established at every Village Extension Worker's headquarter to solve the urgent problems of farmers regarding input arrangements, insect and pest control etc. In this Kisan Seva Kendra, every Thursday farmers are apprised with know-how about latest scientific cultivation practices, soil and water conservation techniques and farmer's problems regarding such matters are solved immediately by the respective extension functionaries. Realizing the importance of this new system of Kisan Mandals and Kisan Seva Kendra in transfer of technology, an effort was made to know the extent of adoption of improved practices of wheat cultivation and identify the factors associated with the adoption of improved practices of wheat cultivation and the selected independent variables such as knowledge, attitude, participation in extension activities, social participation, education, size of land holding and socio-economic status was studied in this investigation. The study was conducted in Jaipur district of Rajasthan. A sample of 180 farmers belonging to two categories viz. mandal and non-mandal was randomly selected for study purpose. Study revealed that majority of the total respondents was medium adopters of improved technology of wheat cultivation. It was also observed that knowledge, attitude, participation in extension activities, social participation, education, size of land holding and socio-economic status were significantly associated with adoption of improved technology of wheat cultivation.