Assessment of Farmers’ Knowledge on Integrated Farming System (IFS)

Abstract

Majority of Indian farmers are either small or marginal. With the increase in population, the per capita availability of land is decreasing. Increasing population and decline in per capita availability of land in the country raises the issue of food security. Realizing the benefit of Integrated Farming System (IFS), in terms of food security, environmental sustainability the farmers are to be encouraged to go for adopting the IFS in their own. The present study was conducted to assess the knowledge of the respondents on IFS and explore the association between respondents’ knowledge and certain independent variables. Hence, three objectives was identified by the researcher for the following research and they are: To study the background information of the respondents. To assess the knowledge of the respondents on Integrated Farming System (IFS). To find out the association between respondents’ knowledge and independent variables. The present study, was conducted in Jorhat district of Assam. A total of 180 respondents were selected from three development Blocks of Jorhat district. The study revealed that 37.22% of the total respondents belonged to the age group 36-46 years and 43.33% attained education upto high school level. A large majority i.e., 90 per cent of the total respondents were married. The study depicted that 37.78% belonged to Other Backward Classes. Around 50.00 per cent of the respondents were from joint family system. Nearly 70 per cent of the total respondents stayed in semi pucca houses. Majority of the total respondents i.e., 85 per cent were in the range of Rs (50,000-1,00,000) in terms of their annual income. A higher percentage of the total respondents (95.00%) practice farming as their occupation for livelihood. A large majority (95.00%) of the respondents were marginal farmer. None of the respondents cultivate through IFS. In all three assessed blocks 98.89 % of respondents did not receive any trainings on IFS. All the respondents (100.00%) were interested in receiving trainings on Integrated Farming System. Knowledge of the respondents was significantly associated with educational qualifications of the respondents.