Vol. 12, Special Issue 8 (2023)

Author(s):
Sundar Barman and Pradip Kumar Neog

Abstract:
The present study was carried out in four climate vulnerable districts of Assam namely Dibrugarh, Sonitpur, Dhubri and Cachar in order to study farmers’ preferences towards Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices and factors likely to influence thereon. A purposive and proportionate random sampling method was used for selecting 400 farmers as respondents from four districts. Appropriate statistical methods were used for analysis and interpretation of data. The findings reveal that Stress Tolerant Varieties (STVs), Integrated Nutrient Management (INM) and IPM (Integrated pest Management) were found to be the most preferred CSA practices. The LMR model showed that degree of preference was expressed variation by selected explanatory variables with 51% (R²=0.51). Dependency ratio of family (X₃)’ ‘proportion of low land’ (X₄), institutional contact (X₆)’, ‘market accessibility’ (X₇) degree of commercialization’ (X₁₀) and ‘adoption consistency’ (X₁₃) recorded to have positive but age (X₁)’, annual farm income (X₅) and ‘farm experience’ (X₈) have negative and significant influence on farmers’ degree of preferences. Extension agencies, both public and private should put forward strategic effort to make farmers aware of climate change and its impact on food production, popularizing these technologies need to be taken care of in other similar areas, systematic assessment of other CSA practices available in the research front, different stakeholders (both public and private) in input and output chains should work in convergence mode as a common entity so that farmers get necessary environment for adoption of technologies.