A STUDY ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROFILE OF POTATO FARMERS: COMPARISON OF IRRIGATED AND RAINFED CONDITIONS IN HIMACHAL PRADESH

Abstract

The present study was conducted in Kangra (irrigated) and Mandi (rain-fed) districts of Himachal Pradesh during 2005-06. The study revealed that the farmers of irrigated area allocated higher proportion of cultivated land to potato, they had more non-farm income and grew mainly Kufri Jyoti variety of potato. On the other hand, in addition to K. Jyoti, farmers of rain-fed area grew other varieties as well. In adoption of potato technologies the farmers of rain-fed area lagged behind their counterparts of irrigated area. The study also found that the adoption of technologies was an important contributor of enhancing potato yield. It was evident from the regression analysis that one percent increase in adoption of potato production technologies would increase potato yield by 0.96 and 0.88% in irrigated and rain-fed areas, respectively. The major constraints faced by potato farmers of both irrigated and rain-fed regions were lack of sufficient quantity of healthy seed, lack of late blight forecast mechanism, low efficiency of mancozeb against late blight, etc. Farmers should be made aware about the usefulness of potato technologies like new varieties such as K. Himalini, etc which possess higher degree of late blight resistance. The scheme of contract farming needs to be supervised by the state government or panchayat. Moreover, government may declare Mandi as ‘seed potato zone’ and Kangra as ‘processing quality potato zone’ and develop proper market infrastructure to upgrade the socio-economic condition of the potato farmers.