Farmers’ Preference for Adoption of Organic Farming

Abstract

Social scientists pursue sincere efforts to identify the preferential variables of cultivators responsible for adoption of modern cultivation practices. The present study was carried out by the Department of Extension Education, Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa, Bihar on 100 farmers of Samastipur district, Bihar. Relevant information on the preferential behaviour towards adopting organic farming has been collected. The present paper attempts to identify the important variables of preference. The farmers were categorized on the basis of land holdings and their preferences for adoption were recorded to generate input data for statistical analysis. Different constraints in adopting organic farming were identified on the basis of preliminary round of discussion with farmers and other stakeholders. The criteria preferred by the farmers while adopting organic farming were assessed. Each constraint was treated as attitude statement and to capture farmers’ attitudes, they were asked the extent of their agreement with these statements with the help of a 5-point Likert scale. Meaningful inferences were drawn regarding identification of single important variable as well as combination of variables responsible for understanding the preference of the cultivators. Differences in agreement towards various constraints as well as differences in ranks of criteria for adopting organic farming across different groups of farmers were assessed using Kruskal Wallis ANOVA followed by Wilcoxon’s procedure to analyze pairwise differences.