Attitude of Farmers and Socio-economic Factors Affecting Knowledge Level regarding Organic and Conventional Farming in Haryana

Pages: 130-135
Nisha Yadav, Jatesh Kathpalia, and Rashmi Tyagi (Department of Sociology, CCS HAU, Hisar, Haryana)

Increase in Population is a major burning issue in India. With increase in population, the requirement for food is increasing day by day. To achieve the requirement of food production the use of chemical fertilizers, toxic pesticides, and hybrids are increasing day by day and due to this the human health and nature are being adversely affected. Organic Farming is the only way to protect ourselves and nature from deadly chemicals. Now a days among the farmers the knowledge and attitude about organic agriculture in India is increasing. So keeping in mind the importance of organic method verses conventional method and to keep the soil alive, a study was conducted among 120 organic and conventional farmers. The study was carried out in four districts of Haryana state namely Hisar, Bhiwani, Kaithal, and Sonepat to know the attitude and knowledge level along with factors associated with knowledge level. Results revealed that half of the organic respondents (50%) had medium knowledge level where as 33.34 % and 16.66 % of respondent had high and low knowledge level respectively where as 48.33% of conventional farmers had medium knowledge and 38.33% and 13.34% were having low and high knowledge level respectively. Attitude of the farmers regarding organic farming showed that pest pressure was major problem in organic farming, got rank I, food security and health can attained through organic, rank II and organic was comparative complex than conventional got ranked III with weighted mean score 2.61, 2.55,2.41 respectively. Socio-economic factors significantly associated with knowledge level of adopter farmers were age, education, family type, size of land holding, mass media exposure, annual income, social participation, and extension contacts. Overall organic farming is a new system of agriculture that repairs, maintains and improves the ecological balance.