Business research project on Farmers'Awerness & Attitude towards Sustainable Agriculture Practices What do farmers think about sustainable agriculture, how much knowledge do they have & what practices do they perform in this field, prepare questioner & then perform Ground research & then prepare a report

1. Farmers’ Awareness and Attitude towards Sustainable
Agricultural Practices
Bhavesh Yadav
(Research Scholar)
Dr. Subodh Pandit
(Research Supervisor)
Keshav Mahavidyalaya
University of Delhi
April, 2021

2. Acknowledgement
I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to our project guide Dr. Subodh Pandit for introducing
me to the field of ‘Business Research’ and for the valuable guidance and support throughout the course
of my project. In particular, he exposed me to the challenging problems of the field through rigorous
discussions and timely suggestions.
I also feel a great pleasure and sense of gratitude in thanking Keshav Mahavidyalaya, University of Delhi
for providing me a platform for exposure, learning and completing my project successfully on time.
I am thankful to all the people who answered my questions willingly and participated in my research,
giving me their precious and valuable time.
And last but not the least, I would like to express deep gratitude to my parents and classmates for
instilling in me strong moral values and sense of purpose and whose love and support makes this project
see the light of the day.

3. Certificate
This is to certify that the project titled “Awareness and Preference of market towards Solar Panels”
submitted as a part of Business Research curriculum is a record of work done under my supervision.
All references have been duly acknowledged.
Dr. Subodh Pandit
(Department of Management Studies)

4. Executive Summary
The application of modern agricultural science and technology has contributed to increase productivity of
agriculture in the last half-century. The successes of agriculture, however, have been accompanied by many
ecological problems. Today, both rural and urban inhabitants feel threatened by dangers posed to the
environment by modern agricultural practices such as the heavy use of chemicals. An alternative farming
strategy called sustainable agriculture promises remedies to the problems created by industrialized chemical
based agriculture, if sustainable agriculture can be shown to be viable and become widely accepted
Currently, the world shows extensive worries on the destructive effects of advanced agricultural technologies
on the environment, natural resources and long term sustainability of agronomy systems. Soil degradation,
erosion, water pollution, excessive use of chemicals, waste of water, decreasing ground water tables,
destruction of natural habitats for wildlife and insects and pests resistance against insecticide and pesticide are
only a few of the concerns expressed by environmentalists, ecologists, agricultural professionals, policy makers,
farmers and public. Despite these environmental effects at many places, the modern agriculture has been
involved in many economic and social changes both in the industrial and developing countries. Sustainable
agriculture, as a managerial philosophy and a system that provides agricultural needs of both present and
future generations has raised as a major challenge of the 21st century to meet these complications and natural
and human difficulties; that is, agriculture should be consume less and be sustainable more.

5. Sustainable agriculture’ as “farming that makes the best use of natural goods and services while not damaging
the environment. It minimizes the use of no renewable inputs (pesticides and fertilizers) that damage the
environment or harm the health of farmers and consumers. In addition, it makes better use of the knowledge
and skills of farmers” .The concept of sustainable agricultural practices is of concern for farmers, extension
agents, agricultural education teachers, and others working in agricultural related occupations. Sustainability
requires a holistic approach in order to understand the whole as an aggregation of interwoven parts working
together. The ultimate goal or the ends of sustainable agriculture is to develop farming systems that are
productive and profitable, conserve the natural resource base, protect the environment, and enhance health
and safety, and to do so over the long-term.

6. Introduction
• With an increase in population & so the basic need of food, the use of chemical fertilizers has been
increased per year exponentially & become essential.
• Though this research an attempt would be made to study the general awareness and implementation of
different kinds of sustainable agricultural practices among farmers
• India’s agriculture is heavily dependent on the usage of fertilizers. Government data indicates that the
fertilizer usage has averaged at around 500 Lakh Metric Tonnes (LMT) per year in the last 10 years. A
parliamentary standing committee recommended for measures to ensure judicious use of fertilizers.
• Globally, the consumption of fertilizers has been on the rise. According to the Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO), the consumption of fertilizers such as nitrogenous, potash, and phosphate fertilizers
touched an all-time high of more than 140 kilograms per hectare of arable land in 2016. In India, the Green
revolution was a major turning point resulting in the increase of chemical fertilizer usage.
• As per the figures submitted in the Lok Sabha in March 2020, there is no specific trend in fertilizers
consumption( Urea & Phosphatic and Potassic (P&K) in the country in the past nine years. The data for 2019-
20 is up to January only and till then, India’s fertilizer consumption was close to 500 Lakh Metric Tonnes, in
line with the consumption figures the year before.
• Irresponsible use of chemical fertilizers will result in environmental problems
Excessive use of chemical fertilizers will result in soil acidification, heavy metals pollution, soil
compaction, and changes in soil microbiome. This means that the pH level of soil and its density
would change resulting in drop in fertility. Bacteria needs to be present in soil for fixing nitrogen in the
soil. In short, the plants and soil will be degraded if fertilizers are not used judiciously.

7. The chemicals used also affect the nearby waterbodies and ground water. The farmers may even end up
contracting respiratory diseases and skin allergies when exposed to chemicals. Not only are fertilizers expensive
but create an eternal dependence on them. In the long run, the farmers will have to pump in more money to pump
in more inputs/fertilizers in the polluted soil to grow crops.
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in global economic downturn because of which the crude oil prices have
dropped. This is expected to have an impact on the fertilizer prices as well.

8. Objectives
• To Ascertain the awareness of farmers about different methods of sustainable agricultural
practices
• To determine the preference and implementation of sustainable and organic agricultural practices
by the farmers
• To explore the relationship between selected characteristics of the farmers and their attitude
towards sustainable agriculture
• To ascertain the knowledge of farmers towards the fertility of soil in their farm
• To collect the data regarding the different method of soil enrichment practices used by the
farmers

9. Research Methodology
Offline Survey was conducted in the villages of Varanasi and Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh. Farmers from
the following locations was selected as the locale of the study.
1. Harhua village located in Pindra Tahsil of Varanasi District which has a population of 2221 out of which
1184 are males and 1037 are females as per Population census 2011
2. Mokalpur village of Jaunpur district which has a population of 665
3. Machhali Shahar of Jaunpur district which has a population 26107
Research Design
Face to face interviewing by using structured interview schedule was used to collect data and the entire
process of data collection were done from 12 March to 24 March, 2021.
Sample
A offline survey was conducted on a sample size of 50 farmers.
To survey was exposed :-
• Different demographic
• People who have some knowledge and experience of farming
Type and Basis of Sampling: Non probability sampling was used for the purpose of this research

10. Pilot study was conducted on 2 people to eliminate problems related to data collection and interpretation.
Type of Data & Sampling Procedure
Primary Data The data employed for this research project is primary data. The main target of this offline
research is to collect reliable data and knowledge & opinion of target audience i.e., farmers and then start the
analysis Sheet of paper containing print of question was given to target audience of different villages The data
form was collected and the particpants were informed about the purpose behind the survey & filling
questionnaire
Secondary Data collected from various research papers, journals, and data base.
TIME FRAME
• This offline survey was done over a period of 12 days and the respondents were given ample time to fill
questionnaire
• Measurement and scaling: For Scaling, we have used Interval Scale. Since we are going for Noncomparative
Scaling Techniques, we have made use of Rating Scale. Under Rating Scale, we have made use of Likert
Scale.

11. Measurement of dependent variable
Farmers’ attitude towards sustainable agricultural practices was considered as the dependent variable of this study. Farmer’s
attitude was measured by asking his opinion Sustainable Agricultural Practices upon various attitudinal statements on sustainable
agricultural practices. 5-point Likert type scale was used for this purpose. Score 5 was assigned to strongly agree statements,
while 4, 3, 2 and 1 was assigned for agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree statements respectively. Different mixed kind
of questions were also used like statement question true false question etc…..
Measurement of independent variables
The independent variables of this study were farmer’s age, education, farm size, farming experience, cosmopoliteness, extension
contact, and year of farming experiance. Age of a farmer was measured on the basis of actual age of his life and expressed in
years. The education was measured by the number of years of schooling. The total land area possessed by the farmer under farm
and homestead was the basis of measuring farm size in this study and it was expressed in acre. Farming experience was
determined by the duration of experience of a farmer in agricultural works and expressed in years. For measuring extension
contact of the farmer, a four-point scale i.e, not at all, rarely, occasionally and frequently was used and appropriate weights were
assigned to quantify the variable. Twenty one questions were selected in the interview schedule for measuring farmers’
knowledge on sustainable agricultural practices. The score assigned against each item was 2 for fully correct answer, 1 for partial
correct answer and 0 for incorrect answer. Weight for responses on the 21 questions of a farmer were added together to get his
score for on sustainable agricultural practices. Necessary tables and categories were used to classify the data considering their
nature and distribution. As per the objective of the study, statistical tests like frequency counts, percentage, mean, standard
deviation were used for analysis and interpretation of data. Correlation coefficients were used for hypothesis testing and 0.05
and 0.01 level probabilities were used as the basis for exploring relationship between the concerned variables throughout the
study.

12. LIMITATION
• The questionnaire that was used for the survey was in Hindi language because mostly farmer don’t able to
read English, & some of them don’t even able to read so I explained them the questions in their local
language and fill the options accordingly by myself

13. Review of Literature
1. Sustainable Agriculture and Its Implementation Gap—
(Overcoming Obstacles to Implementation Norman Siebrecht TUM School of Life Sciences, Technical University
Munich Germany, Published: 8 May 2020)
This study analyzed the potential obstacles that could hinder the implementation of sustainable agriculture in
practice and which options exist to overcome or minimize these obstacles. However, this research was limited to
analysing the view of the large farmers belong to Germany
2. Farmers’ attitude towards sustainable agricultural practices
(By Shaikh Shamim Hasan Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University |
BSMRU · Agricultural Extension and Rural Development PhD from, CCAP, IGSNRR, Chinese Academy of
Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China)
This study is mainly conducted among the farmers of villages of Bangladesh, the type of soil, mentality of farmers use
of chemicals by them and type of agricultural practices is totally different their from our country aand states
3. Farmer Awareness and Implementation of Sustainable Agriculture Practices in Different Types of Farms in Poland
Monika Gebska Anna Grontkowska Golebiewska Institute of Management, Warsaw, University of Life Sciences—
WULS, Nowoursynowska Warsaw, Poland;
The majority of farms in Poland are mixed farms, carrying out plant and animal production.

14. RESEARCH FINDINGS
1. Age Group

15. 1. Gender

16. 1. Education Level

17. 1. Farm Size

18. 1. Farming Experience

19. 1. Do you think that demand of basic food has been increasing per year?

20. Do you believe that all human being are member of a single community and the conservation of
environment is our resposibility?(Level of Cosmopoliteness)

21. Do you think that fertility of soil in your farm has been reduced in last 5-10 year?
If your answer is "yes" in previous question, Do you think that overuse of chemical fertilizers is
responsible for lower fertility of soil

22. Which of the following are you depend on for irrigation?

23. Do you practice any soil enrichment practices?

24. How many crop are you able to grow in a perticular farming season out of 3 farming season?

25. In your opinion, Is planting more trees supportable to better agriculture

26. Do you think that environmental problem may
hinder agricultural practices?

27. Do you think that farmers should be informed
about how to use these sustainable agricultural
practices?

30. H0
= There is no association between farm size and people who think Increase in the use of chemical fertilizer in last 5
− 10 year]

31. • H = There is no association between