Deciphering the Constraints Faced by Cotton Growers in the Using Indigenous Technical Knowledge

Abstract

The study was conducted to delineate the constraints being faced by the cotton growers in the use of indigenous technical knowledge. The irrigated north western plain zone (Ib) of the state of Rajasthan was the locale of the study. Selected zone covered viz. Hanumangarh and Sri Ganganagar districts. Both the districts were selected purposely for the research study on the basis of largest area and production of cotton crop. Further, two tehsils were selected purposely on the basis of largest area and production of cotton from each selected district. Consequently, a total of four tehsils were chosen from the two selected districts. Furthermore, five villages from each selected tehsil were selected by simple random sampling method for the investigation. For the objective the research, twenty villages were therefore deliberately chosen from four tehsils in the Hanumangarh and Sri Ganganagar districts. Thus, a total of 300 cotton growers were chosen from both the selected districts and 15 cotton growers from each village were included in the proportional random sample used to choose the respondents. The results revealed that the major constraints being faced by the cotton growers in the use of ITKs practices were “ITK has not been scientifically evaluated (81.78MPS)”, “farmers were more dependent on ready-to-use (RTU) products (78.78 MPS)”, “ignorance of the young generation towards ITK in cotton cultivation (76.33 MPS )”, “no channel to share ITK in cotton cultivation (75.33 MPS )”, “lack of availability of financial assistance offered by credit institutions (74.44 MPS)” and “lack of availability of professional guidance to improve ITK practices (69.00 MPS)”.