This is the report of the study conducted by Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology (NDUA&T).
Farmers in two villages, Vishunpurva (an adopted village) and Dammar Jot (a non-adopted village) were assigned to one of the four socio-economic groups, i.e. landless, marginal, subsistence or large (= food surplus/cash cropping farmers), depending on their ability to take risks involved in adopting new technologies.
Data collected under Output 1 indicated that all socio-economic groups have benefited from using the zero tillage (ZT) machine. However, in terms of adoption, at the outset of the project the larger (food surplus and subsistence) farmers were using the machine more than the poorer groups. The main benefit is income generated from the sales of increased production. There does appear to be an issue of labour displacement; the extent to which this is a problem remains unclear and it is recommended that the project team continues to monitor the situation.
On investigating the ways in which farmers access information, for Output 2, it was found that larger (food surplus and subsistence) farmers have many more channels available to them whereas the marginal and landless have the fewest. Women farmers are dependent on their families for new knowledge and information.
The channels of information range from government departments and the private sector to farmers’ fairs and local meetings known as ‘chaupal’. On further scrutiny, the channels of support available do not tailor their information to meet the specific needs of all socio-economic groups of farmers. It was revealed that ‘one message does not fit all’.