Economic contribution of agricultural extension services to the beneficiaries of karnataka watershed development project

Abstract

The present study was conducted to measure the Economic contribution of Agricultural Extension Services provided by Karnataka Watershed Development Project to the beneficiaries of Bijapur district during the year 2014–15. An ex-post facto research design, specifically before and after method was adopted to know the changes in the important indicators such as annual income, crop yields, employment generation and materials status among beneficiaries due to Karnataka Watershed Development (KAWAD) Project and also developed a scale on economic contribution of AESs to capture the contribution of each services to the economic status of the beneficiaries. Hence, 90 beneficiary farmers and 90 non-beneficiary farmers were selected, thus 180 respondents constitute the sample for the research study. A structured interview schedule was used to collect data. The findings of the study revealed that majority (42.22%) of the beneficiary belonged to medium and high (37.78%) category with respect to overall access to the services of KAWAD project. Over a half (55.56%) of the beneficiary farmers had better accessed to the credit services followed by training services (54.45%) and advisory services (51.11%), about 67.78 and 46.67 per cent of them had best accessed to input services and land based & crop management services, respectively. About 40.0 per cent of them poorly accessed to the market services. Overall contribution of AESs towards economic status of beneficiary farmers was found to be 24.37 per cent, among major contribution from credit services (5.06%), land based and crop management services (4.45%) and least contribution was from advisory services (3.09%). Cent per cent of them adopted the services like land leveling, land shaping and bunding followed by construction of check dams and bunds (86.66%), new tanks and farm ponds (83.33%), contour bunding (76.66%) etc,. The KAWAD project has significantly contributed towards socio-political, economical and overall development of KAWAD beneficiaries.