Determinants of adoption of horticultural crops in backyard gardens

Intensified use of available backyard spaces with vegetable cultivation can provide economic and nutritional security to resource poor families. An action research under institution village linkage programme of ICAR during the year 2000 to 2005 at Kattur village of Tamil Nadu gave credence to the fact that the technology assessed with full participation of farm women can ensure continued adoption when it satisfied the some of the important characteristics of farm innovation. Benefit-cost ratio of 3.61 in vegetable cultivation and 2.64 in moringa cultivation was achieved by farm women. An impact study was conducted in April 2011 to understand the determinants of continuous adoption of backyard vegetable cultivation after a gap of six years of project completion. The feasibility, efficiency, observability, easy availability, simplicity and immediate return were identified as important attributes of backyard vegetable farming for adoption. The zero order correlation analysis revealed that profitability, low initial cost, feasibility and lower perceived risk were found to be positively and significantly associated with the extent of adoption by the farm women.