Determinants of Farmers' Adoption Behaviour towards Farm Business Management Practices for Vegetable Farming in Mid-Hills of Himachal Pradesh, India

Abstract

Today's farmers need to upgrade their skills by continuously introducing new techniques and management functions into their traditional farming to maximize farm productivity. The present study aimed to investigate the factors influencing farmers' adoption behaviour and constraints faced while adopting farm business management practices in vegetable farming, which comprised of a sample of 140 farmers using Likert scale techniques.. Findings revealed that the training, knowledge, proper budget, farm planning, and farm business appraisal were key factors mainly considered by the farmers while adopting the farm business management practices. The study also revealed that lack of quality raw material, ineffective market conditions and pest and disease control were the critical constraints faced by the farmers. In terms of determinants of farmers' adoption behaviour towards farm business management practices, it emerged from the study that these practices helping greatly to save time, managing the labour and net worth pertain cost incurred by the farmers. The findings suggested that agencies, primarily government institutions, shall come forward to highlight these factors and built farm business management practices programmes and package of practices among the farming community.