Management Characteristics and Adoption Index of Indigenous Agricultural Practices by Rice Farmers

Abstract

The study was conducted in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu, to assess the relationship between Management characteristics of farmers and their adoption of Indigenous Agricultural Practices (IAPs) in Rice cultivation. One hundred and twenty Rice growing farmers were purposively selected from five blocks of Vellore district for the study. Thirty eight IAPs for Rice cultivation as listed in Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Agritech portal were selected for the study and the adoption index regarding these technologies revealed that majority (65%) of the respondents had ‘medium’ adoption index. With regard to the management characteristics studied, majority of the respondents had medium level of management orientation (75.00%), coordination ability (70.80%), risk orientation (75.80%), self-confidence (69.20%) and self-reliability (56.70%). The study also revealed that therewas a positive and significant relationship with regard to self-confidence and self-reliance of the farmers with the extent of adoption of Indigenous Agricultural Practices. Risk orientation had a negative but significant relationship with extent of adoption. Training the farmers to improve their management skills could lead to better adoption of the indigenous practices.