Relationship between socio-economic characteristics of farmers and perception of precision farming

The present study was conducted in Bagalkot, Belagavi, Dharwad and Haveri districts of Karnataka state during the year 2013-14. These districts are purposively selected for research study as Precision Farming Project under RKVY was implemented by U.A.S., Dharwad in these districts during the year 2011-2012. All the 76 farmers covered under Precision Farming Project constituted the sample of the study. Findings of the study revealed that, majority of farmers were middle aged (60.53%), studied up to high school and above (60%), belonged to medium size family (55.26%), belonged to medium land holding (40.79%) and belonged to high annual income (72.37%). With respect to innovative proneness, 40.79 per cent of farmers exhibited high innovative proneness. Perception of farmers about precision farming was positively and significantly correlated with the extension contact, innovative proneness, crop productivity and mass media participation. All the ten independent variables taken together explained 61.66 per cent of variation in perception of farmers about precision farming.