Adoption of potato production technologies by the farmers in relation to their socio-economic profiles

A number of recommended production techniques and practices do not reach the farmers’ fields and those carried to the farmers get considerably distorted or often adopted partially resulting in poor yield. In this context, an attempt was made to study the extent of adoption of potato production technologies by the farmers in relation to their socio-economic profiles. The present study was conducted in Nimapada and Pipili blocks of Puri district of Odisha. Both purposive and random sampling techniques were followed in the study. A total number of 100 potato farmers were selected randomly as respondents. The study revealed that: age, membership of social organizations, extent of social contact, cosmopoliteness, media exposure, housing pattern and scientific aspirations of the respondent-farmers had higher consistency than their other socio-economic variables. The Potato farmers had highest adoption gap of 30.33 percent in case of use of proper potato varieties. Majority i.e. 68 percent of the respondents came under medium, followed by 23 percent low and 9 percent high adoption level categories. A good number of socio-economic variables such as: cosmopoliteness, media exposure, housing pattern, land holding size, occupation, farm power possession, annual income, and scientific aspirations had very significant impact on the adoption level of the farmers regarding various production related technologies of potato cultivation.