Knowledge level of farmers about soil health card scheme

Abstract

Major part of Indian economy is contributed by agriculture and its allied sector. Around 56 per cent of population directly or indirectly depends upon agriculture. The GDP contribution of the agriculture and allied sector is about17.8 per cent but this sector is facing many challenges to flourish. Out of these challenges, lesser crop productivity and inefficient use of fertilizers are the main challenges faced by Indian farmers. Till now, fertilizer recommendations for different crops are made on the basis of agronomical practices and not on the soil test basis. This has led to nutritional deficiencies and decrease in soil fertility in some parts of the country. Hence, to improve the soil health and boost productivity it has become necessary to nurture the soil. In the wake of this, Government has launched the soil health card scheme in February, 2015. Under this scheme farmers are issued a soil health card which carries crop-wise recommendation of nutrients and fertilizer required for individual farm. Soil health card makes the farmers aware about soil health of their farm and help them to improve productivity by maintaining soil health. Thus, to measure the knowledge level of respondents about SHCs the present study was conducted in Sri Ganganagar district of Rajasthan state which was selected purposely. The Sri Ganganagar district consists of nine tehsils, Out of these, three tehsils namely Padampur, Sadulshahar and Karanpur were purposely selected for the present investigation on the basis of highest number of registered farmers under SHCs. The proportionate random sampling method was used to select the registered farmers and they were called as beneficiary of Soil Health Card scheme because they have benefited under Soil Health Card scheme. Further, equal number of non-beneficiary respondents from same tehsils were also selected randomly who have not benefited under Soil Health Card scheme and they were called as non-beneficiary respondents. Thus, total 120 respondents i.e. 60 beneficiary and 60 non-beneficiary respondents were selected from selected tehsils for the present investigation. The results of the study revealed that majority of respondents in the study area had medium level of knowledge about SHCs. They had highest knowledge about the aspect of “information regarding soil sampling” and least knowledge about “general information regarding key features”. There was significant association found between education, occupation, annual income, mass media exposure and extension agency contact with knowledge level of the farmers.