Levels of Adoption and Encountered Barriers of Thiruvarur District Farmers of Tamil Nadu on Implementation of Recommended Biofertilizer Technologies

Extent of adoption refers to measure how far a particular technology was adopted by an individual correctly without any distortion of message. Efficient transfer of innovative technologies and their adoption to field situations is the key to National agricultural development. Hence, a study was under-taken to assess the levels of adoption and encountered barriers of rice growers on recommended biofertilizer technologies in rice cultivation. The study was taken up in the rice predominant district of Thiruvarur in Tamil Nadu with a sample size of three hundred growers selected based on the random sampling method. The findings revealed that majority of the respondents (51.67 per cent) were found to had medium level of adoption about recommended biofertilizer technologies in rice cultivation followed by low and high level. Out of eight major recommended biofertilizer technologies in rice cultivation, majority of the respondents had high level of adoption on soil application of azospirillum, soil application of phosphobacteria, azospirillum seed treatment and phosphobacteria seed treatment. The study revealed that the major barriers faced by the rice growers were, non availability of labour, lack of interest, lack of confidence towards various biofertilizer practices, lack of technical guidance, lack of training programme and non-availability of viable culture at Government depots.