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A study has been undertaken amongst the tobacco growers of East Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh with regard to their extent of adoption of the package of practices recommended by Central Tobacco Research Institute, Rajahmundry.
Adoption behaviour was assessed interms of their situational variables namely farm size, market orientation and other personal variables namely age, education, economic status, social participation, knowledge of the practices, information sources used and practice attributes. The variables have been selected based on an intensive review of the work done by other researchers in the field of adoption. An hypothetical approach has been followed to study the relationship between the independent variable and extent of adoption.
The extent of adoption has been measured using an Adoption Quotient developed by Chhattopadhyay (1963) and modified by Sing and Sing (1974). The potentiality of the package of practices were conceived as the maximum degree to which a farmer can adopt, which was based upon the recommendation by Central Tobacco Research Institute for the respective package of practices. Scales developed by Trivedi (1963) and Sing and Sing (1974) were used to measure the situational and personal variables. Data has been collected from 106 farmers using a pre-tested, valid interview schedule. Data statistically analysed using appropriate parametric techniques.
Results revealed that only 41.51% of tobacco farmers used the varieties recommended by Central Tobacco Research Institute, namely CTRI Spl. and kanakaprabha. Tobacco growers have given least importance to the application of farmyard manure to the tobacco in the nursery stage. Whereas two third of them applied the same in the mainfield. Over adoption has been evidenced with regard to seed rate as well as application of inorganic fertilizers. The tobacco growers gave over and above importance to the application of nitrogenous fertilizer. 44.34% of tobacco farmers never followed the deep ploughing either by tractor or crow bar in the mainfield.
Size of farm held by tobacco growers as well as to their orientation to the tobacco market were not found to influence their extent of adoption of package of practices recommended by Central Tobacco Research Institute. Aged farmers adopted less. Though education was found to enhance their adoption behaviour, their knowledge on the practices and sources of information used has not specifically influenced the tobacco farmers. The attributes of package of practices were also not considered by them. Social participation did not help to the tobacco growers in adopting the practices recommended by Central Tobacco Research Institutes.