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Attitude exhibits a pivotal role in influencing one’s behaviour towards any psychological object. The present study aimed at developing and validating a multi-dimensional attitude scale on Conservation Agricultural practices based on Maheshwari–Kumar–Jhamtani– Bhaskaran–Dandapani (M-K-J-B-D) method. The steps included item collection, item selection, item analysis, conducting Principal Component Analysis to extract the underlying dimensions and finally calculation of attitude scores. A total of 75 attitudinal items were pooled initially covering various aspects of Conservation Agriculture (CA) and were subjected to item relevancy checking and item analysis. The final scale contained 25 attitudinal statements under eight sub-dimensions. The reliability of the scale was measured by using Cronbach’s Alpha and the reliability coefficient was found to be 0.80 which was satisfactory. The validity was assessed using content validity method by dispensing the finalized scale to 10 subject related experts. This standardized scale can be used by other academicians of related fields with or without modifications to measure attitude of farmers towards different aspects of Conservation Agriculture.

In most developing countries, including India, agriculture is moving away from traditional self sufficiency goals (subsistence) to commercialization. In this changing scenario, an efficient marketing system is central to future growth of the sector. Horticultural crops are highly vulnerable to market fluctuations. Problems due to perishable nature of the crop are compounded by lack of storage facilities, weak infrastructure, and poor transport. This often leads to market glut and distress sale at low paying outlets. In the context of developing countries, it has been suggested that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can play a significant positive role by improving arbitrage and reducing information asymmetries. The Market Information Centre (MIC) in Kerala was established to provide vital market information to the state’s fruit and vegetable cultivators. This paper describes the use of price information provided by MIC to banana cultivators for making market transactions. The study was conducted in Wayanad district of Kerala, India. Data was collected using structured schedule and in depth interviews. Information on price realized by the farmers was collected from both users and non users of information provided by MIC centres.

The spree of tackling climate change issues stems from every global corner, which remains unique to specific agro-ecosystems. Rural India with a fair majority of livelihoods dependent on agriculture, are facing the severity of challenges to cope up with climate change. Therefore, livelihood analysis is an important aspect to address the climate change issues. Present study was conducted in the year 2020-21, in a climatically vulnerable state of India, Odisha, which suffers from climate induced natural disasters both in coastal and non-coastal ecosystems. Sustainable livelihood framework was followed in analyzing differential level of human, social, physical, financial and social assets holding of three dominant livelihood groups, viz., crop, livestock and crop + livestock farmers in one each coastal and non-coastal districts covering a total of 200 farm households. The analyses showed contrasting livelihood status with varied level of assets, crop + livestock farmers having above average overall livelihood level and social assets being at above average level contributing highest to overall livelihood status. Overall level of coastal livelihoods was at lower level as compared to non-coastal livelihoods. Better livelihood assets along with both technological and institutional interventions result in better insulation to rural households against ill effects of climate change events.

Agriculture is one of the most important sectors of the Indian economy and can benefit tremendously from the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). ICTs can be especially important in bringing changes to socio-economic conditions of small and marginal farmers. A study was conducted in using Accidental sampling method with a sample size of 99 in Udham Singh Nagar District of Uttarakhand to find the characteristics of the farmers and to assess the use of ICTs by the farmers. The finding of the study revealed that majority of the farmers belonged to middle age group, practiced farming as their main occupation and maximum number of farmers were educated upto graduation level. Majority of them owned smart phones and had internet connectivity on their mobile phone. Samsung mobile phones were used by maximum number of the farmers. It was also found that majority of the farmers used WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube frequently and mainly for entertainment purpose. However, majority of them were not using email, agricultural websites/ portals, agricultural apps and Twitter.

Agriculture is the backbone of Indian economy. In this changing World scenario, agriculture is taking a new shape and expanding its scope beyond the limits of mere crop cultivation and animal husbandry for livelihood of rural population. Activities like diversification, value addition, precision farming, high tech agriculture, agripreneurship, global marketing, organic farming, etc. are gradually getting due attention of people involved in redefining agriculture. Agripreneurship is a strategy that can lead to economic self-sufficiency of rural people. Agripreneurship can generate employment opportunities in the primary sector, reduce migration to urban areas and can help in making villages self sufficient. Despite of several efforts to promote entrepreneurship in rural areas, rural agripreneurs are very few in number because even though agripreneurs start entrepreneurial venture assuming high risk, they soon give up due to various constraints. So, a study was conducted on agripreneurs of Udham Singh Nagar district of Uttarakhand using case study method to identify various constraints faced by rural agripreneurs. It was found that majority of agripreneurs faced technical constraints while establishing or running the enterprise followed by marketing constraints. Other than these constraints, there were psychological constraints, socio- cultural constraints, information related constraints, financial constraints, administrative constraints and managerial constraints which were faced by the agripreneurs in running the enterprise smoothly. The agripreneurs should be provided with the trainings to overcome these constraints being faced by them.

ICT can be used reasonably in transferring the modern agricultural technologies to the farmers. ICT has many applications in agricultural extension most especially in accessing required information and knowledge. Hence, the present investigation was carried out in Jabalpur, Patan, Sihora and Panagar Blocks of Jabalpur District of Madhya Pradesh. The main objective of the study was to analyse the relationship between selected profile characteristics of farmers and impact of Krishinet Portal. A total of 280 respondents were purposively selected for the study through simple random technique. The results of the study shown that majority of the respondents (48.57%) were middle aged (38-51 years), educated upto higher secondary level (24.64%), had medium family size (51.79%), had lower income (Rs. 33000 to 55000 p.a.) (38.22%), had small (2.5 to 5 acre) land holding (43.57%), had medium information seeking behavior (58.21%), had positive attitude towards KGK (61.78%), had positive attitude towards ICT (69.29%), had medium innovativeness (52.14%) and medium economic motivation (62.50%). The relationship between selected profile characteristics and impact of Krishinet portal indicated that education, annual income, operational land holding, information seeking behavior, attitude towards KGK and attitude towards ICT were positively significantly related, which means the respondents who is more educated, more annual income, large size of operational land holding, high information seeking behavior, positive attitude towards KGK and positive attitude towards ICT, getting more benefit from use of Krishinet portal.

In recent years, there has been extensive investment in e-governance throughout the developing world. Still, little is known about the impact of those investments, partly due to a lack of assessment guidance. In this study modified sustainable livelihood framework approach was used for studying impact of the project on farmers. Before and after data was collected from the registered farmers using recall method to assess the impact of the project on all five types of capital (Natural capital, financial capital, human capital, physical capital and social capital). It was found that after implementation of the project, in the category of natural capital, average production and average sold quantity of rice, wheat, pigeon pea, mustard, and green gram has been significantly increased and in the category of financial capital, respondents'average family income, earning from agriculture and allied sector and benefit from government schemes has been significantly increased and in the category of human capital, average number of training received by respondents and average number of extension contacts made by respondents has been significantly increased and in the category of physical capital, average storage facility has been increased by respondents and in the category of social capital, average number of meetings attended by respondents in Krishi Gyan Kendra has been significantly increased.

Innovations play an important role in increasing food production and optimizing resource utilization by farmers. Despite herculean extension efforts, there is still a wide gap between agricultural technologies developed at research institutions and their adoption by farmers. Often, innovations are rejected by the farmers after initial adoption due to several reasons. Hence, this study was undertaken to find out the reasons behind the discontinuance of agricultural innovations. The study was carried out in U.S. Nagar district of Uttarakhand. Five agricultural innovations viz. direct seeding of rice, application of bioagents, mushroom cultivation, polyhouse cultivation and nutritional gardening were selected for the study. For data collection, 89 farmers were interviewed by the researcher using a pretested schedule. The findings revealed that major reasons for discontinuance of agricultural innovations were non-availability of inputs (68.57%), lack of extension agency contact/support (51.42%), lack of interest (37.14%), engagement in other activities (28.57%), cumbersome operation & maintenance (28.57%) and lack of training (22.85%).

India’s National Agricultural Policy lays emphasis on the use of IT for achieving rapid development of the sector. In line with this mandate, the Ministry of Agriculture is implementing a number of e-agriculture initiatives at the national and state levels. These schemes focus mainly on developing web based applications, data warehousing, strengthening IT infrastructure and making information more accessible to the farmers to facilitate decision making.An underlying assumption behind policy statements is that the use of ICTs can solve the perennial problem of information deficit faced by farmers in India. Further, it has been argued that ICTs can significantly reduce costs incurred, enhance market participation and spur commercialization of agriculture. This, in turn, is likely to shift farm households from traditional self sufficiency goals towards profit and income oriented decision making. This paper describes the use of ICTs (especially mobile phones) by marginal and small farmers as a factor of productivity and market availability. The study was conducted in the state of Uttarakhand, India. Four hill districts from the state were selected for the study. In-depth interviews were conducted with farmers from eight villages spread across these four districts. It was found that lack of policy interventions, nature of produce, role of the buyer and trust and social norms limits the advantage that can be derived from use of ICTs. In this context, farmers are not able to leverage ICTs for additional information and transform it into tangible benefits in the form of increased income or enhanced productivity.