Vol. 10, Special Issue 5 (2021)

Author(s):
Dr. Jatesh Kathpalia, Dr. Rashmi Tyagi, Anil Kumar Saroha and Dr. Bas Kaur

Abstract:
The disposal of paddy residue has turn out to be a huge problem resulting farmers prefer to burn the residues in-situ. Paddy residue management is of high importance as it contains plant nutrients and improves the soil-plant-atmospheric continuum. Burning biomass not only pollutes environment and results in loss of appreciable amount of plant essential nutrients. The study was conducted in Kaithal district of Haryana state. From this district, two blocks namely Kaithal and Pundri were selected. On the whole, a total of 80 Happy Seeder adopter farmers were selected. Thirty percent of the respondents had no social participation while 43.75%had low and 26.25% had medium level of social participation. More than one-third (38.75%) of the respondents had low level of socio-economic status. Rest 37.5% and 23.75% respondents had medium and high level of socio-economic status, respectively. Education was also found significantly associated with education level; illiterate respondents (36.36%) had low level of knowledge while respondents educated upto senior secondary (41.17%) and graduation & above (50%) had medium level of knowledge followed by high level of knowledge 29.41% and 25% respectively. Size of land holding and annual family income were found significantly associated. As the land holding increases knowledge level was also found increased. Respondents having income between Rs. 75000-150000 had low knowledge while families with income >300000Rs. had medium (50%) and high level of knowledge (20%). Analysis of study depicted the multiple cumulative socio economic impact of using happy seeder as perceived by farmers. More than 2/3rd of the marginal farmers performed social ceremonies by the benefit amount of Happy Seeder (66.66%), investment on quality education of their children and increase in household assets (33% each). Small farmers also invested on education of children (42.85%) on social ceremonies and household assets (35.71% each) increase in agricultural land on lease (21.42%).