Title: MULTI-CRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS OF CONSTRAINTS OF FARMER FIRST PROGRAMME USING ANALYTICAL HIERARCHY PROCEDURE

Authors: Anuhya Pola, Venkatesan P. and Lakshmi T.

Publisher: The President, Society of Extension Education Gujarat

Keywords: constraints, farmer FIRST, analytical hierarchy procedure, agriculture

Volume: 41

Issue: 1

Year: June 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.56572/gjoee.2026.41.1.0023

Abstract: Farmer FIRST Programme was an Indian Council of Agricultural Research's flagship programme aimed at promoting sustainability by integrating indigenous technologies with modern day scientific technologies. The present study was conducted during 2024-25 in ATARI Zone-X, where two adopted and two non-adopted villages were selected from each of the five Institutes. From the adopted villages, 30 beneficiary farmers were randomly selected, and from the non-adopted villages, 10 non-beneficiary farmers were randomly selected, making a total sample size of 400. To measure the constraints faced by beneficiary farmers of FFP a multi criteria decision making method i.e. Analytical Hierarchy Procedure was applied and the data was collected using pairwise comparison scale. The study revealed that social constraints was the most critical constraints with priority value of 0.2016 followed by personal constraints (0.2015) with little difference, geographical constraints (0.1997), organizational constraints (0.1994) and technical constraints (0.1977). Further, the consistency of the judgements was also checked using consistency ratios which were below the acceptable values (CR<0.1) for all the constraints which revealed that the prioritization was reliable and valid. Although, FFP was successful in achieving in some of its objectives, these constraints perceived by beneficiaries could be integrated into policy to make the programme locationspecific and more effective.