ADOPTION OF POTATO CULTIVATION TECHNOLOGY BY THE POTATO GROWERS UNDER CONTRACT FARMING

M ost of the farm operators being small and marginal farmers in India, there are problems in getting quality raw material for processing, marketing, and distribution, especially in perishable high value crops but contract farming which was restricted, largely, to seed production earlier, spread to perishable produce and has now become the dominant and growing mode of raw material production and procurement co-ordination among the processors and fresh produce market and exporters. Potato is very important perishable high value crop in North Gujarat Agro-climatic zone of Gujarat state with the cultivating area of 97,204 hector in six districts of North Gujarat (Anon.2014-15). Therefore, the present investigation was conducted in the North Gujarat Agro climatic Zone of Gujarat state. Two districts viz., Banaskantha and Sabarkantha occupy the highest area under potato cultivation in North Gujarat and hence, were selected purposively for study. Ten potato growers were randomly selected from twenty villages. In all, 200 contracting potato growers were selected for the study. Important motivated factors farmers toward contract farming were; assured price, price stability, no tension of marketing, technical advice to control pests and diseases, no cash payment for seed. Majority (78.00%) of the potato growers had medium to high level of adoption regarding potato cultivation technology. With respect to practice wise adoption, maximum farmers adopted the practices viz., improved varieties, plant protection, irrigation, seed treatment, fertilizers management and land preparation in case of potato cultivation. The independent variables viz., education, mass media exposure and level of knowledge, age, land holding, occupation, annual income, cropping sequence, and risk orientation had positive and significant correlation with the adoption of potato cultivation technology by the potato growers.


INTRODUCTION
Most of the farm operators being small and marginal farmers in India, there are problems in getting quality raw material for processing, marketing, and distribution, especially in perishable high value crops (Saran et al., 2020). The processing and marketing firms faced issues of high cost, lack of adequate availability, poor quality and timeliness. On the other hand, there are gluts in market for such producers and farmers realized low or un-remunerative prices. After the opening up to the Indian economy and entry of many domestic and multinational players in to agribusiness sector, contract farming which was restricted, largely, to seed production earlier, spread to perishable produce and has now become the dominant and growing mode of raw material production and procurement co-ordination among the processors and fresh produce market and exporters.
Potato is very important perishable high value crop in North Gujarat Agro-climatic zone of Gujarat state with the cultivating area of 97,204 hector in six districts of North Gujarat (Anon., 2014-15). Therefore, the present investigation was undertaken with following objectives.

OBJECTIVES
(1) To identify factors motivating farmers for contract farming in potato cultivation (2) To assess the extent of adoption of potato cultivation technology by potato growers under contract farming (3) To ascertain relationship between selected personal, socio-economic, situational, communication and psychological characteristics of the potato growers and their extent of adoption of potato cultivation technology

METHODOLOGY
The present study was conducted in the North Gujarat Agro climatic Zone of Gujarat state. Two districts viz., Banaskantha and Sabarkantha occupy the highest area under potato cultivation in North Gujarat and hence, were selected purposively for study. Among all the talukas of https://doi.org/10.56572/gjoee.2022.33.1.0007 Banaskantha and Sabarkantha districts, four talukas viz., Disa, and Dantiwada of Banaskantha district and Idar and Vadali talukas of Sabarkantha district occupy highest area under potato cultivation comparing other talukas. Therefore, these four talukas were selected purposively. After the selection of talukas from both the districts, a list of potato growing villages of respective talukas under contract farming was obtained from the contracting firms. From the list, five villages from each selected taluka were purposively selected for the study on the basis of higher potato growing area under contract farming. Thus, total number of selected villages was twenty. A list of the potato growers of each selected villages were obtained from the contract farming firms. Ten potato growers were randomly selected from each village. In all, 200 contracting potato growers were selected for the study.

Factors motivating the farmers toward contract farming
Motivational factors referred to the factors which motivated farmers to cultivate potato under contract condition. Factors motivating farmers are generally oriented towards maximization of the profits and have better contact with technical advisor of contracting firms to seek special knowledge of new innovations resulting in adoption. The data are presented in Table 1. As seen from the table 1 important factors motivated farmers toward contract farming were; assured price (88.50%), price stability (86.00%), no tension of marketing (84.50%), technical advice to control pests and diseases (82.50%), no cash payment for seed (81.00%), delivery from farm (minimize transportation cost) (80.00%),no storage requirement (78.00%). The only motivational factor mentioned by less than half of the respondents was, recognition at national level (43.00%).
From the above result, it can be concluded that important motivated factors farmers toward contract farming were; assured price, price stability, no tension of marketing, technical advice to control pests and diseases, no cash payment for seed.
The probable reason for such type of findings may be that these factors are attracting respondents to adopt potato cultivation under contract farming. The finding is line with the finding of swinnen (2006) Damor (2021) and Bhabhor, and Makwana (2021).

Extent of adoption of potato cultivation technology by the contracting farmers
Adoption is a decision making mental process to continue use of an innovation. In this study, adoption mean acceptance of full use of potato cultivation technology under contract farming. It is rigidly stated that the adoption of recommended package of practices is an instrument for making agriculture a better and more profitable enterprise. Considering this fact, an attempt had been made to find out the extent of adoption of potato cultivation technology by the contracting farmers. On the basis of adoption score obtained by the potato growers, the adoption quotient was calculated for individual respondents with the help of formula developed by Sengupta (1967). The respondents were then, classified into three categories on the basis of + S.D. from the mean (X). The classification of respondents is presented in Table 2.  .50 per cent of potato growers had medium level of overall adoption regarding potato cultivation technology followed by 24.00 per cent and 21.50 per cent of the respondents who had high and low extent of overall adoption, respectively.
Thus, it can be concluded that majority (78.00%) of the potato growers had medium to high level of adoption regarding potato cultivation technology. The probable reason might be that price assurance was the biggest attraction for the farmers for growing more profitable high-value cash crop under contract farming and gaining recognition among the farming community.This finding is in the line with the finding reported by Mane (2013), Melkunde (2013) and Poshiya et al., (2020).

Practice wise adoption level of potato growers about potato cultivation technology
Practice wise adoption was also measured. To assess the practices wise adoption mean adoption index was calculated for each practice. The data regarding practice wise adoption of the potato growers is depicted in Table 3. Table 3 state that among the different potato cultivation practices, maximum farmers adopted the practices viz., improved varieties (88.50%) and plant protection (86.66%) and were ranked first and second, respectively. The practices viz., irrigation (85.50%), seed treatment (85.00%), fertilizer management (83.00%), land preparation (80.00%), sowing (78.75%), earthing up and weeding (73.75%), harvesting (67.50%), spacing (63.00%) and crop rotation (56.66%) were ranked third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh, respectively. Whereas, the practices viz., storage (49.00%), and grading (47.50%) was adopted by less than half of the respondents. 0.8065** **0.01 level of significance and * 0.05 level of significance of significance. While, age, land holding, occupation, annual income, cropping sequence and risk orientation had positive and significant correlation with the adoption potato cultivation technology by the potato growers at 0.05 level of significance. Only size of family could establish negatively significant correlation with the adoption of potato cultivation technology by the farmers. Remaining variables viz., farming experience, social participation and yield gap could not established any significant correlation with the adoption potato cultivation technology by the potato growers.

CONCLUSION
Important factors of motivated farmers toward contract farming were; assured price (88.50%), price stability (86.00%), no tension of marketing (84.50%), technical advice to control pests and diseases (82.50%), no cash payment for seed (81.00%), delivery from farm (minimize transportation cost) (80.00%) and no storage requirement (78.00%). Majority (78.00%) of the potato growers had medium to high level of adoption regarding potato cultivation technology. With respect to practice wise adoption, maximum farmers adopted the practices viz., improved varieties (88.50%) and plant protection (86.66%) which were ranked first and second, respectively. The practices viz., irrigation (85.50%), seed treatment (85.00%), fertilizer management (83.00%), land preparation (80.00%), sowing (78.75%), earthing up & weeding (73.75%), harvesting (67.50%), spacing (63.00%) and crop rotation (56.66%) were ranked third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh, respectively. Whereas, the practices viz., storage (49.00%), and grading (47.50%) were adopted by less than half of the respondents. The independent variables viz., education, mass media exposure and level of knowledge had positive and highly significant correlation with respondents' adoption of potato cultivation technology at 0.01 level of significance. While age, land holding, occupation, annual income, cropping sequence, and risk orientation had positive and significant correlation with the adoption of potato cultivation technology by the potato growers at 0.05 level of significance. Only size of family could establish negatively significant correlation with respondents' adoption of potato cultivation technology. Remaining variables viz., farming experience, social participation and yield gap could not established any significant correlation with adoption of potato cultivation technology by the potato growers.