Farmers Field School: An innovative approach

Present study was conducted in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra state.100 beneficiaries of FFS were purposively selected from two tahsils. Personal interview technique was used for data collection. It was observed that majority of the mango growers were ‘middle’ age, with ‘secondary school education, had ‘small’ land holdings with ‘medium’ area under the mango cultivation, ‘low’ annual income. Majority of the mango growers had ‘medium’ experience in mango cultivation and ‘medium’ mass media exposure, ‘medium’ social participation, ‘medium’ extension contact and ‘medium’ knowledge about recommended mango production technology. Education and knowledge level of the respondents had positive and significant association with adoption. In respect of constraints faced by the mango growers, majority of the respondents faced the problems namely ‘fertilizers were not available in time and not available in village’, ‘fertilizers were costly’ and ‘pests and diseases were difficult to identify’. ‘Field trip be organized at university farm’ and ‘more focus be given on plant protection measure’, FFS be carried out at central place of village were the major suggestion given by the mango grower.