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A Study on attitude of Farmers towards Conservation Agriculture in Tamil Nadu

Author: Ganapathy Ramu M.* and Asokhan M.

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Abstract

Conservation Agriculture (CA) is a farming system that can prevent losses of arable land while regenerating degraded lands. It promotes maintenance of a permanent soil cover, minimum soil disturbance and diversification of plant species. This study explored the attitude of farmers towards conservation agriculture. An attitude scale consisting of 10 items was developed and administered to 233 farmers of Cuddalore, Villupuram and Tiruvarur districts of Tamil Nadu. The findings of the study revealed that nearly half (48.50%) of the farmers were found to possess moderately favourable attitude towards conservation agriculture followed by less favourable (36.48%) attitude. The farmers with highly favourable attitude towards conservation agriculture found to be least which was about 15.02 per cent. The detailed analysis of the above findings and suggestions to improve their attitude towards conservation agriculture are presented in this paper.

Keywords

Attitude, Conservation agriculture, Favourableness.

Conclusion

From the study, it could be concluded that the majority of the respondents had a moderately to less favourable attitude towards conservation agriculture. This clearly shows the lack of awareness and knowledge among farmers about the principles of conservation agriculture. Several practices were miss judged by the farmers and those practices were scientifically proven as a successful conservation practices. Generally, as tillage is reduced, the number of insect pests increases. However, reduced tillage also tends to increase diversity of predators and parasites of crop damaging insects (Stinner and House, 1990). Similarly, under conservation agriculture, crop rotations can help break insect pest, diseases and weed cycles. The minimal soil disturbance and soil cover will protect the biological component of the soil and help with biological tillage, keeping pests and disease under control through biological diversity processes (Hobbs and Govaerts, 2010). According to FAO (2001), adoption

References

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How to cite this article

Ganapathy Ramu M. and Asokhan M. (2022). A Study on Attitude of Farmers Towards Conservation Agriculture in Tamil Nadu. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 14(1): 843-847.