Knowledge Level of Farmers about Improved Production Technology of Onion Crops in Sikar District of Rajasthan

Abstract

Knowledge about innovation may be an important factor affecting the adoption behaviour of farmers. The farmers who have more knowledge about newly developed technology also have more level of adoption of technology compared to those who have low knowledge. Therefore, present study was conducted to assess the knowledge level of the farmers on the improved production technology of onion in Sikar District of Rajasthan. The Sikar district consists of 9 blocks, out of which two panchayat samities namely Laxmangarh and Dhod were selected on the basis of large area coverage under onion crops. From each selected blocks, three villages were selected and 15 farmers were selected from each selected village randomly, thus making a total sample of 90 farmers. The selected respondents were interviewed personally with the help of a well structured and pre-tested interview schedule. The result reveals that the maximum of the respondents (65.56%) had medium level of overall knowledge, followed by 20.0 per cent of them had low level of knowledge and only 14.14 per cent of them had high level of overall knowledge about onion production technology. 70.74 per cent respondents had good knowledge about field preparation and hence this practice was ranked first. The second highest per cent of respondents 61.48 per cent were having knowledge about transplanting of nursery in main field which was given second rank. Only 25.0 per cent respondents had knowledge about selection of suitable variety which was ranked last because most of the respondents had minimum knowledge about this practice.