Knowledge level of farmers regarding nutritive rich agriculture in Haryana

Introduction

Agriculture has historically been the backbone of India's rural economy, and successive revolutions in food grain, milk, fruit, vegetable, oilseed and fisheries production have substantially improved national food availability. However, despite these gains in aggregate production, a large section of the rural population continues to suffer from malnutrition and hidden hunger, largely because the diversity and nutrient density of food consumed do not match dietary requirements. The shift towards rice and wheat dominated cropping systems, coupled with a decline in the cultivation of pulses, millets, fruits and vegetables, has further widened this nutrition gap. Against this backdrop, the concept of nutritive rich agriculture, which integrates crop diversification, kitchen gardens, livestock, poultry and fisheries with a focus on household nutritional security, has gained considerable importance among policy makers, researchers and extension functionaries. Knowledge is widely recognized as the foundation upon which adoption of any improved practice is built. Unless farmers possess adequate knowledge about the concept, technology, economic and dietary aspects of nutritive rich agriculture, the desired behavioural change towards adoption cannot be expected. Several earlier studies in allied fields have reported a predominance of medium level of knowledge among farming communities regarding improved practices, which underscores the continuing need for systematic assessment of knowledge gaps before designing extension interventions. Keeping this in view, the present investigation was undertaken with the specific objective of studying the knowledge level of farmers regarding nutritive rich agriculture in Fatehabad and Karnal districts of Haryana, along with an examination of the relationship between farmers' selected socio-personal, economic and communication characteristics and their knowledge level.

Research Methodology Locale of the study

The study was conducted in Haryana state, with Fatehabad and Karnal districts purposively selected owing to the prevalence of diverse farming systems suitable for the promotion of nutritive rich agriculture. From each district, two blocks were selected randomly, and from each block, two villages were selected randomly, resulting in a total of eight villages -Banawali and Dhingsra (Bhattu block), Khumber and Noorkiali (Nagpur block), Ballah and Dupedi (Assandh block) and Munak and Balpabana (Munak block).

Sampling procedure

From each of the eight selected villages, fifteen farmers were chosen at random, constituting a total sample size of 120 respondents for the study. www.extensionjournal.com

Measurement of knowledge level

Knowledge was operationally defined as the amount of accurate information possessed by a respondent regarding the concept, technology, economic, dietary and farmingsystem related components of nutritive rich agriculture. A structured knowledge test comprising statements covering these dimensions was administered to each respondent. Responses were scored as full knowledge (3), partial knowledge (2) and no knowledge (1). The scores obtained on each item were summed to arrive at an overall knowledge score for every respondent. Based on the mean and standard deviation of the overall scores, respondents were classified into three categorieslow, medium and high knowledgeusing the equidistant (mean ± SD) method.

Statistical tools used

The data collected were analyzed using frequency, percentage and weighted mean score to rank individual knowledge components. The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was computed to study the relationship between selected independent variables (age, education, land holding, training received, extension participation, extension contact and annual income) and the overall knowledge level of the respondents. Multiple regression analysis was further employed to assess the combined contribution of these independent variables in explaining variation in knowledge level.

Results and Discussion

Knowledge of farmers regarding components of nutritive rich agriculture

The component-wise analysis of knowledge presented in Table 1 indicated wide variation in the level of awareness across different dimensions of nutritive rich agriculture. With respect to the basic concept, the majority of respondents were well aware that nutritive food is better for good health, which secured the first rank with a weighted mean score (WMS) of 2.53, followed by nutritive rich food increasing longevity (2.49) and giving better economic returns (2.20). Knowledge about mitigating hidden hunger through nutritive rich foods ranked lowest (WMS = 1.86) among the concept-related statements. In the technology and production domain, farmers exhibited the highest knowledge regarding crop harvesting at proper maturity stage (WMS = 2.95) and seed treatment with biofertilizer (WMS = 2.92), whereas awareness about the recommended package of practices (1.71) and recommended nutritive rich varieties (1.63) was comparatively low, indicating a clear knowledge gap in technical and varietal aspects. Regarding economic and marketing aspects, awareness of the nearest APMC market secured the top rank (WMS = 2.85), while knowledge about marketing information and news sources was the weakest (WMS = 1.53). In the domain of balanced diet and nutrition, farmers possessed relatively higher knowledge of key food groups (WMS = 2.16) compared with bio-fortified crops (1.39), suggesting that newer nutrition-sensitive technologies have not yet been widely disseminated. Within the nutritive rich mixed farming component, knowledge regarding soil health and its improvement (WMS = 2.60) and green leafy vegetables/salad crops (WMS = 2.55) was found to be high, whereas knowledge about poultry (1.15) and fisheries (1.05) farming was markedly low. This indicates that, while crop and soil-related knowledge has been reasonably well disseminated, allied enterprises that hold considerable potential for household nutritional security remain largely outside the awareness of farmers, possibly owing to limited extension coverage of these enterprises in the study area.

Overall knowledge level of respondents

The distribution of respondents according to their overall knowledge level is presented in Table 2. It is evident that the majority of farmers (74.16%) possessed a medium level of knowledge regarding nutritive rich agriculture, followed by 16.67 per cent of respondents in the low knowledge category and only 9.17 per cent in the high knowledge category. This predominance of medium-level knowledge is broadly consistent with the findings of Lahoti (2011) [5] , Kadu (2016) [3] and Prashanth et al. (2018) [8] , who also reported a majority of respondents falling in the medium knowledge category with respect to allied agricultural practices. The relatively small proportion of farmers in the high knowledge category points to an existing gap that can be bridged through intensified and well-targeted extension efforts, including method and result demonstrations, farmer field schools and exposure visits focusing specifically on nutrition-sensitive farming components such as kitchen gardens, poultry and fisheries integration.

Relationship between selected characteristics and knowledge level

The correlation analysis presented in Table 3 revealed that age of the respondents was significantly and negatively correlated (r = -0.292) with their knowledge level, suggesting that younger farmers, being more receptive to new information and technologies, tend to possess relatively higher knowledge. Education (r = 0.434), training received (r = 0.543), extension participation (r = 0.213) and extension contact (r = 0.405) were found to be positively and significantly correlated with knowledge level, indicating that formal education, exposure to training programmes and regular contact with extension functionaries play a decisive role in enhancing farmers' awareness of nutritive rich agriculture. On the other hand, land holding (r = 0.136) and annual income (r = 0.150) showed non-significant association with knowledge level, implying that the resource position of a farmer alone does not guarantee a higher level of knowledge in the absence of adequate exposure to information sources.

Multiple regression analysis

To assess the combined influence of the selected independent variables on the knowledge level of farmers, multiple regression analysis was carried out. The results indicated that the seven independent variablesnamely age, education, land holding, training received, extension participation, extension contact and annual incometogether accounted for 52.10 per cent (R² = 0.521) of the total variation observed in the knowledge level of farmers regarding nutritive rich agriculture. This relatively high coefficient of determination underscores the strong collective influence of these socio-personal, economic and communication-related variables, with training received and education emerging as the most influential individual predictors based on their correlation coefficients.