Index to Assess the Impact of Weather based Agro-Advisory Services among the Cotton Growers of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh States

Author: B. Srishailam, V. Sailaja, P. Ganesh Kumar, D. Subramanyam and Shaik Nafeez Umar

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Abstract

Weather plays a major role in determining the success and failure of crop production. Meanwhile, weather based agro-advisory services facilitates the farmers to plan and perform well in advance by providing accurate weather information. Thus, these services had significant impact in improving the livelihood of farmers by averting or minimizing the crop loss due to aberrant weather. As the farmers have to combat with climate change, in addition to several other production, technical and marketing constraints, provision of timely weather based agro-advisory services enable them to reduce yield losses. To understand this, the present study provides empirical evidence of the impact index for weather based agro-advisory services among its beneficiary cotton growers in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The study helps Government and Non-government institutions, policy makers, agricultural scientists, agricultural officers and State Department of Agriculture and Universities to understand the cotton growers’ attitude towards weather based agro-advisory services and its impact. The result of the present study helps the above-mentioned stakeholders to plan and formulate policy implications in the future for the farmer’s welfare. However, lack of standard index to assess the impact of weather based agro-advisory is a major hindrance in understanding the efficient utilization of agro advisories. Seventy-five statements were collected from available literatures, then edited and subjected to judges’ opinion. Based on which, 60 statements were selected to analyses the extent of differentiation between high and low group. Based on the highest ‘t’ value, a total of 50 statements were selected finally to develop the impact index. The reliability (0.862) and the validity of the scale was assessed to represent its precision and consistency. Thus, the developed impact index can be used to measure the impact of weather based agro-advisory services among the farmers beyond the study area with suitable modifications.

Keywords

Impact, Weather based agro-advisory services, Cotton growers, Scale construction, Agro-advisory services, Weather, Climate smart agriculture

Conclusion

Nowadays, a high pressure is exerted on the agriculture sector to increase the production for the growing population, but the challenge lies in the climate change. Despite of the various constraints faced by the farmers, climate change acts as the root cause of several other constraints. The impact index will be developed based the ten impact indicators that covers all aspects of the farming community. Based on the ten indicators the results shown that exactly three-fifth of the beneficiary cotton growers had medium level of impact of weather based agro-advisory services on beneficiary cotton growers (60%), followed by an equal percentage of them had low (20%) and high (20%) level of impact of weather based agro-advisory services on beneficiary cotton growers respectively.

References

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How to cite this article

B. Srishailam, V. Sailaja, P. Ganesh Kumar, D. Subramanyam and Shaik Nafeez Umar (2023). Index to Assess the Impact of Weather based Agro-Advisory Services among the Cotton Growers of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh States. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 15(4): 740-746.