Evaluating Constraints-Faced by Farmers in the Adoption of Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana in Rajasthan State of India

Abstract

Among all the states of India, Madhya Pradesh has covered largest area under organic certification, followed by Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Rajasthan state of India is well known for its rainfed areas in which agriculture is a gambler of Indian monsoon and it can act as a potential zone for PKVY. In Rajasthan, organic farming is also named as “Baderaan ki kheti” which locally means as the type of farming done by their ancestors, but actually it is a traditional approach of farming with modern and scientific way. Government of Rajasthan has also taken an initiative to bring much area under organic farming through Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) in Bikaner District. Hence, in 2015-18 highest numbers of clusters were formed under PKVY. Thus, the study was conducted in Bikaner District of Rajasthan state to delineate the constraints being faced by farmers in adopting the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana in the state of Rajasthan. The Bikaner district comprises eight tehsils. Out of three tehsils, namely Nokha, Sridungarhgarh and Bikaner, were selected purposely for the present investigation based on the highest number of registered farmers under PKVY. One village from each selected tehsil constituted the sample of the study and PKVY beneficiary farmers were selected purposely using proportionate random sampling method and the non-beneficiary farmers were randomly selected from the same villages to constitute the other half of the sample size. Thus, 180 respondents, i.e., 90 beneficiary and 90 non-beneficiary respondents were included in the present investigation. The data were gathered from 180 respondents through an interview schedule. It was found that the main constraints faced by the farmers in the adoption of PKVY were ‘time consuming process’, ‘lack of literacy among farmers’, ‘low yield during transition period’, ‘lack of knowledge about geo-tagging’ and ‘incentive is too low. This may be because farmers in the study area were not aware about the complete procedure involved in the adoption of PKVY and required more exposure through various extension activities like awareness programmes, trainings, workshops and interactive sessions. Progressive organic farmers who have adopted all the practices of organic farming and have advanced knowledge should be used as referent extension person for increasing the rate of adoption of PKVY.