Arid legume crops and its adoption of modern varieties in some arid areas of western Raj as than

摘要

An attempt has been made to analyze the adoption of improved farm practices especially the arid legume crops and its constraints in some arid areas of Western Rajasthan. The study is a part of a research project on pastoralism. Although animal husbandry is a major source of livelihood of pastoralists, they go for agriculture with meagre cultivable land to supplement their income. Majority of them practiced traditional agriculture with minimum market inputs. Analysis of data revealed that the adoptionof high yielding varieties of legume crops like cluster bean, Moong bean and Moth bean was quite poor ranging from 3 to 6% with < 1% of total sown area. In case of high yielding varieties of pearl millet the extent of adoption was higher (31%). Use of chemical fertilizers and insecticides was almost nil in Kharif crops. Locally available farmyard manure especially goat manure was largely applied due to easy availability. The differential pattern of adoption was observed, as percentage of adopters was slightly higher among medium and large farmers than marginal and small farmers. The non adoption or poor adoption was primarily for non availability of improved seeds at the time of sowing, inclination towards local varieties for easy availability, lack of actual knowledge primarily due to nature of occupation, illiteracy, risk of crop failure for erratic or poor rainfall, scattered settlements and age old traditional farming. To accelerate the processes of adoption of legume crops, which has nutritive as well as commercial values, the easy availability of improved varieties through village co-operatives, dissemination of new varieties through market linkage extension activities to make aware about the commercial importance of the crops would pave the way for higher adoption. The key- communicators could be identified at village level for effective dissemination of technologies.