Awareness of Safe Plant Protection Measures among Vegetable Growers in Prayagraj District of Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

Vegetable producers are often less knowledgeable about pest and disease identification, pesticide doses, application times, and health impacts of pesticides. As a result, it was thought that the research would be very useful in determining the level of perception of safe plant protection techniques among vegetable producers. The study was conducted in Prayagraj District of Uttar Pradesh to measure the awareness of safe plant protection measures among the vegetable growers in Prayagraj district of Uttar Pradesh. A total number of 120 respondents were selected randomly from ten villages under Chaka block because productivity, production and area under vegetable cultivation were found to be maximum. The data were collected by personnel interview method by using pre structured interview schedule and descriptive research design was used for this study. The findings of the study revealed that 47.50 per cent of the respondents belonged to the middle- aged group, majority of the respondents (55.84%) belong to the OBC caste and majority of the respondents belongs to medium level of annual income i.e. 50,000 – 1 lakh. The findings also revealed that 49.16 per cent of the respondents had medium level of awareness towards safe plant protection measures followed by 23.34% and 27.50% of the respondents with low and high levels of awareness respectively. It was found that independent variables like age, caste, economic motivation were positively and significantly correlated with awareness of safe plant protection measures. It is suggested that government should organized awareness camps, campaigns and demonstrations about safe plant protection measures.