Role of Communication and Psychological Variables in Adoption of Crop Residue Management Technologies: A Sociological Analysis

Description

Page: 329-333

Harvinder Kaur and Vinod Kumari (Department of Sociology, CCS HAU Hisar, Haryana)

Communication and psychological variables play a pivotal role in the adoption of new agricultural technologies. Advanced agricultural technologies have positively affected the yield of the crop and saved time and money for the farmers. Crop residue is a stuff which leftover on the field after the crop has been harvested. It includes stems, stalks and seedpods. Residue management is essential for the sustainability of agriculture because the burning of residue create various environmental and health issues. The study was conducted to find the knowledge and adoption of farmers about crop residue management technologies in Fatehabad and Karnal districts of Haryana state. A well-structured and pre-tested interview schedule was constructed according to the objective of the study. Two blocks from each district were selected randomly, and twelve villages (three from each block) were selected randomly to collect data. Further 20 respondents were selected from each village through a simple random sampling technique. Thus a total of 240 respondents were interviewed. The present study revealed that 46.3 percent of respondents had high mass media exposure followed by medium (37.1 %) and low (16.7%). Psychological profile of the respondents revealed that 39.6 per cent of respondents had a high level of change proneness followed by medium (37.5%) and low (22.9%). Forty five percent of respondents had high level of motivation for technology adoption. The study concluded that the mass media exposure, change proneness and motivation regarding adoption of crop residue management were high due to good extension contacts and high accessibility of several type of means of communication, i.e., print media, digital media etc.