Adoption gap as the determinant of instability in Indian legume production

Abstract

The underlying determinants of yield gaps need to be understood for making appropriate policy prescriptions to increase production in the short-run and to eliminate or reduce yield gaps between research station, on-farm demonstration and farmer’s fields. Suitable technologies extended to the farmers are readily adopted by some while others may not be interested. It emphasizes the need for identifying and quantifying level of adoption and its determinants across agro climatic regions. As such adoption gap analysis was carried out for pigeon pea and chickpea in high potential high gap states and districts of India. The recommendation domain was used in the study to ascertain the adoption gaps at farmers’ level. The results showed that high to medium level of adoption gaps were observed in almost all the recommendation domains in both the crops. Nearly 80 percent of the respondents had not adopted manurial aspects of the crop and 76 percent had not gone for any plant protection measures. Only 29 per cent adopted the recommended varieties and nearly 60 per cent adopted agronomic practices. On the basis of the results obtained it can be recommended to have appropriate training for the extension workers and subsequently to farmers with availability of matching input supply system. Instead of delaying extension efforts for the research results, extension workers may transfer farmers’ innovative practices to other farmers and locations. If variability of yields from the same seeds is found in different locations and at farmer to farmer field in the same location, pulse breeding research for development and/or introduction of location specific high yielding variety may be recommended.