Exploring Farmers Attitudes towards Climate Resilient Agricultural Technologies in Telangana State, India

Abstract

Since the start of this century, there has been significant attention placed on climate change, largely due to its direct impact on ecosystems and agriculture, particularly affecting farmers in vulnerable regions. A descriptive research study was undertaken to explore the attitude of farmers towards climate resilient agricultural technologies in the National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) project implemented villages of Suryapet and Khammam districts of Telangana state, India. The ex-post facto research design was used in this study. A sample of 200 respondents from the two districts i.e. Suryapet and Khammam were randomly selected to assess the attitude of farmers towards these CRA technologies and also employed Z test to evaluate significant difference between the attitude of farmers in Suryapet and Khammam districts towards climate resilient technologies. The findings of the study revealed that the majority of the Suryapet and Khammam (62.67% and 72.00%) farmers had highly favourable attitude towards CRA technologies which was followed by moderately favourable (35.33% and 28.00%) and less favourable (2.00% and 0.00%). On the whole, nearly two third (65.00%) of the respondents had highly favourable attitude towards CRA technologies which is considered as a precursor for adoption of these technologies by the farming community. By employing the Z-test it was observed that there was a difference between farmers' attitude in the Suryapet and Khammam districts where Khammam farmers were having slightly more favourable attitude when compared to Suryapet farmers. Therefore, the outcomes of this research study could assist extension organizations in effectively training and implementing climate-resilient technologies under the National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) initiative in the other villages.