Farmers’ Perception on Environmental Effects of Pesticide Use, Climate Change And Strategies Used in Mountain of Western Himalaya
Journal Title: International Journal of Agricultural Science and Research (IJASR) - Year 2018, Vol 8, Issue 1
Abstract
The study was conducted to evaluate farmers’ perception on environmental effects of pesticide usage in Indian mountain of Western Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh. The study was based on primary data collected from the farmers who involved in pesticides use in high value cash crops like apple and vegetables. The perception on various aspects of pesticide usage revealed that those farmers who had large farm size have more awareness for the usage of pesticides than those who had small farm size. All small land holding and majority of large land holding farmers were dependent only on farming for their livelihood. Hence, to increase their production farmers were doing excessive and indiscriminate use of pesticides. On all farm, more than four fifths of the farmers responded that productivity was decreasing and 94.51 per cent of the farmers responded that cost of production was increasing. In comparison to large farmers, response of small farmers was less for adopting some of the strategies to minimize adverse effect of climate change and loss of natural resource base. The study concluded that all the farmers those who had awareness and those who don’t have awareness on the impact of pesticide use were underestimating the use of pesticides which make an increase in agricultural production and productivity and have adverse effect on the human health and the ecosystem. Therefore, the message of the study is clear. There is a need to pay attention towards promoting scientific and rational use of pesticides and other agro-chemicals to avoid environmental effects and to promote balanced use of fertilizer including bio-fertilizer for restoring soil heath to protect the livelihoods of multitude of small and large farmers. The government should, therefore, undertake policy measures to strengthen extension facilities to educate specifically small size farmers about environmental effects due to the use of agro-chemicals.
Authors and Affiliations
SHANTA KUMARI, H. R. SHARMA
Keywords
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- EP ID EP276737
- DOI 10.24247/ijasrfeb20189
- Views 99
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