Impact of front line demonstration on the knowledge and adoption level of farmers in rice-based farming system

The study was conducted to assess the impact of front line demonstrations on rice production technologies on the knowledge and adoption level of rice farmers. A comparison was also made with regard to the knowledge level of non-beneficiary farmers of the same villages. The study revealed that the mean knowledge of beneficiary farmers with respect to all technological aspects of scientific rice cultivation have increased by 44.78 per cent as compared to the non-beneficiary farmers. Maximum change in knowledge was found in aspects like ‘seed treatment with fungicides’ (55.00%). There were some areas where the non-beneficiary farmers also possessed quite enough knowledge namely ‘number of seedlings per hill’ (87.50%), ‘suitable harvesting time’ (85.00%), ‘quantity and application of organic manure’ (80.00%) and ‘proper stages of crop for hand weeding’ (80.00%). In contrast, they were quite poor in knowledge in areas like ‘different considerations at the time of pesticidal applications’ (22.50%), ‘rouging methods’ (27.50%), ‘seed treatment’ (30.00%), ‘nursery management’ (32.50%) and ‘application of NPK in split doses, (30.00%). As many as 68.33 per cent beneficiary farmers were using the recommended seed rate and 63.33 per cent were using all the introduced rice varieties, in contrast, 61.67 per cent beneficiary farmers were not using ‘seed/seedling treatment practice’. ‘Unfavourable climatic conditions’ like dry spell and heavy or erratic rainfall during the major field operations was cited by 91.67 per cent farmers as the major hindrance in adopting recommended practices like nursery management, water management, weeding, fertilizer and pesticides application.