Knowledge Level of Farmers Regarding System of Rice Intensification (SRI) Method in Puri District of Odisha

A study was carried out to evaluate the knowledge level of farmers regarding System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method in Puri district of Odisha covering four villages viz. Kuarpur, Kashia sasan, Durgapur and Dandipur. The data were collected through personal interview by designing a questionnaire. Knowledge level was tested with 3 point scale from farmers and was analyzed by using statistical tools. Knowledge level of farmers towards land preparation, transplanting, fertilizer management, water management and weed management were at high level. Some farmers knowledge were poor which can be improved by imparting training on SRI method of rice cultivation by extension personnel of Agriculture University or State Department of Agriculture.


INTRODUCTION
Rice is the staple food of half the world's population and 90% of it is produced and consumed in the Asian subcontinent. Estimates suggest that 24-30% of the world's assessable freshwater resources (rivers, lakes, aquifers) are used to irrigate rice. By 2025, 15-20 million of the world's 79million hectares of irrigated rice low lands, which provide 3 quarters of world's rice supply, are expected to suffer some degree of water scarcity. India has the world's largest rice cultivated area and already facing a major water crisis. Demand for a water intensive crop such as rice is expected to increase by 38% by 2040, depending on the existing water crisis (IWMI, 2007).
The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is a set of principles and practices for increasing the productivity of irrigated rice by changing the current conventional management of lands, soil, water and nutrients. SRI method helps increase yield by over 30% while using 40% less water than conventional methods.
The method was initially developed in 1980s in Madagascar and has been validated in 43 countries. SRI practices and concepts have also been successfully adopted in upland rice and extended to other crops (Wheat and Maize) in course of time.
Although the benefits of SRI have been amply demonstrated around the world, the potential to achieve the benefits to large scale implementation of the methods has yet to be tapped. A report on more rice with less water recommends that massive rice producing countries like India, China, and Indonesia convert at least 25% of their current rice cultivation to SRI methods by 2025. This world is not only dramatically reduced the use of water for rice production but also improve global food security.
The SRI approach is very knowledgeintensive and requires careful study and continuous experimentation to find out the most effective combination of practices matching the rice plant with the growing environment, such as changing the spacing between plants, seedling age, planting depth of the seedlings, timing and methods of irrigation and drainage, as well as methods of weeding, etc. in the present context of agricultural scenario of the state, SRI method of rice cultivation have a wider scope to bridge the economic gap of Odisha. The most important aspect of (SRI) rice cultivation is the transfer of technology to explore its production potentiality. It is also necessary to motivate the farmers to accept and act upon the technology to increase farm income. As rice is the principal crop of the nation. The population explosion requires demands more food production. The area under rice is gradually decreasing over the year along with continuous crop raising without maintaining soil health and natural resources also distributed our ecosystem. After that people were adopting SRI method of rice cultivation with suitable management practices for crop plant, soil, water and nutrients (Thatchinamoorthy & Selvin, 2014). Despite all the rich profitability of the technology of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) practices the extent of it's remain insignificant due to various reasons (Nath and Das, 2018). Keeping in view the importance the study was undertaken with the objectives to assess the knowledge level of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and to find out the gap analysis in Rice production.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study was carried out in 4 villages of Puri district. The villages were Kuarpur, Durgapur, Kashia sasan, Dandipur of Nimapara block. While selecting the villages the main focus was given on the extent of adoption of farmers, the knowledge and the socioeconomic gain that resulted in the adoption of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method of rice cultivation by farmers. A preliminary survey of the selected villages was carried out at the beginning of the following aspects. Here randomly selected of 110 respondents. A Knowledge test was developed with item related to SRI. The data were collected through personal interviews by designing a questionnaire. Knowledge level was tested with 3 point scale from farmers as full knowledge; partial knowledge and no knowledge were scored as 3, 2 and 1 respectively. The data were collected, tabulated and analyzed by using statistical tools (Samui et al., 2000). Multi stage random sampling technique was followed to select the sample for the study. The District and Block were selected purposively. Then random sampling procedure was adopted to select the Panchayats, Villages and respondents for the study.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In the present study, knowledge has been operationalized as the body of understood information possessed by the respondents on the cultivation of paddy under SRI method. The overall knowledge level and technologywise knowledge level of the respondents was studied and the findings were presented in this section. The knowledge level of respondents in SRI cultivation technology was measured by using scores for SRI techniques.
The table 1. revealed that the knowledge level of the farmers in selecting lands suitable for cultivating rice in SRI method was found to be 29.1% for having full knowledge, 70.9% of farmers have partial knowledge for selecting land. The people knowing to provide irrigation facilities to the fields was 49.1% had full knowledge, 49.1% having partial knowledge and 1.8% of people didn't have proper knowledge for irrigation.  On perusal of the data table 3. the farmers having knowledge on the selection of seed on the improved variety of seed were 69.1% who knew it with full knowledge, 29.1% with partial knowledge and 1.8% with no knowledge. The farmers having knowledge on crop cutting in 150 days duration for medium lowlands and lowlands were 60% with full knowledge and with partial knowledge were 40%. The knowledge of farmers in cutting the crop in 120 days duration for medium uplands has 63.6% fully knowledgeable and those having partial knowledge were 36.4%.    The knowledge of farmers on not washing the seedlings after uprooting was also in good numbers, they were 92.7% with full knowledge and 7.3% with partial knowledge. The data given in table 8. shows that most of the farmers knew fertilizer management. The knowledge level of farmers on applying 4-5 tonnes FYM/compost per acre was 87.3% full knowledge and partial knowledge farmers were 12.7%. The farmers knew to apply fertilizers before ploughing and incorporating were very high in numbers i.e. 96.4% full knowledge and partial knowledge were 3.6%. The farmers having knowledge level on imple menting green manuring/brown manuring were 32.7% full knowledge, 50.9% with partial knowledge and 16.4% with didn't know. The farmers having knowledge level on how to using vermi compost, were 27.3% full knowledge, 56.4% with partial knowledge and 16.4% with no knowledge. The knowledge level of farmers on applying 60:30:20 kg NPK was 78.2% full knowledge and 21.8% with partial knowledge. Most of the farmers were having full knowledge level on applying nitrogen in 3 doses, 92.7% full knowledge and 7.3% partial knowledge respectively. So as the knowledge level of farmers on applying potash in 3 doseswere 96.4% with full knowledge and 3.6% with partial knowledge.   The results from table 11 revealed that caste, occupation and cosmopolite were not significantly related to the knowledge level of the respondents or these three variables had no influence in the change in knowledge level. It is revealed that education (0.307) was found to be highly significant with the knowledge level followed by the possession of farm implements (0.298), annual income (0.283), social participation (0.190), information sources (0.182), size of land holding (0.175), family type (0.121), age (0.119), and outward orientation (0.066) respectively. The technology gap observed in the study may be attributed the difference in the climate conditions, timeliness of availability of inputs and feasibility of technology demonstrated (Sagar & Chandra, 2004). Annual Income 0.283 * *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level