The Level of Rice Farmers' Adoption of Smart Climate Agriculture

Abstract

Aim: To know the adaptation strategies undertaken by the respondents to deal with climate-smart agriculture. Study Design: An expost facto research design was employed to analyse the level of adoption by the rice farmers. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted during 2018-19 in Dharwad district of Karnataka state. From Dharwad district two villages namely Mummigatti from Dharwad taluk and Jodalli from Kalaghatagi taluk were selected. Methodology: A total of 60 respondents were randomly selected and personally interviewed. To elicit the required information from the respondents, a structured interview schedule was prepared. Through informal discussions and interviews, data was collected from the respondents. The collected data was analysed with the help of suitable statistical tools like frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and t-test. Results: The results of the study revealed that majority of the respondents from Mummigatti (86.67%) and Jodalli (66.70%) had medium level of awareness regarding climate-smart agriculture. Majority of the respondents from Mummigatti (80.00%) and Jodalli (73.30%) were found in medium adaptation category. Equal percentage (20.00% each) of the respondents from both the villages belonged to the high adaptation category. The study also reveals that cent percent of the respondents from both the villages were faced constraints likelack of knowledge about adaptive practices, lack of awareness about climate change issues, non-availability of inputs in time, lack of financial resource, poor support of local and national authorities with the climate-related issue and higher cost of the agricultural inputs to cope with climatic variability. Conclusion: From the study, it can be concluded that providing information and local support from the authorities will be of immense use in the proper adaption of site-specific climate-smart practices. The study also suggests that suitable policies and strategies should be taken to deal with non adaptation of climate-smart practices in the villages.