Frontline demonstrations for improving productivity and profitability of wheat in Bihar

Abstract

Frontline demonstrations (FLDs) of wheat were conducted from 2011-12 to 2015-16 and 2019-20, 2021-22 in Bihar to demonstrate the impact and production potential of improved technologies. The FLDs were conducted at ICAR- Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Regional Station Pusa, Samastipur Bihar. Different villages of Samastipur, Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga districts of Bihar were selected to know the yield gap, technology gap, extension gap, economic return, extent of farmer’s satisfaction and constraints faced by the farmers especially wheat growers. The performance of improved wheat varieties were evaluated over traditional farmer’s practices. The results revealed that adoption of improved production technology enhanced the yield and net returns by 21.9% and 23% respectively, over farmer’s practices. The higher extension gap (1.23 t/ha) was recorded during 2019-20 whereas, the mean of extension gap during seven years was 0.80t/ ha. Moreover, the highest technological gap (2.51t/ha) and technology index (38.5%) was recorded with HD 2967 during 2015-16 and lowest technology gap (0.89 t/ha) and technology index (17.32%) was recorded with HD 2985 during 2021-22. An additional return of `13851/ha was obtained with an additional investment of `1986/ha coupled with scientific monitoring of demonstrations and use of wheat varieties during different years further influenced the economic returns per unit area. Unavailability of improved high yielding varieties of wheat was found to be most confronting constraint. Hence, the farmers of the area are advised to adopt the new wheat varieties and recommended improved package of practices and technologies for higher return and boost up the production and productivity of wheat in Bihar.