STUDY THE PROBLEMS OF IMPROVED RICE VARIETIES ADOPTION IN BHUTAN

Abstract

The study was carried out at Kazhi block under Wangdue Phodrang district as the adoption level of IRVs in the study area is drastically low as compared to other rice-growing blocks of the district. The study was conducted through the household survey using structured questionnaire during August 2016. A total of 67 respondents were selected using simple random sampling method. The main objective of the study is to investigate the factors affecting the adoption of IRVs. Secondly, to describe the selected characteristics of the farmer and study the relationship between the selected characteristics of the farmer and their adoption of IRVs. Thirdly, to assess the current adoption level of IRVs. Moreover, information was also collected from District Agriculture Officer, Agriculture Extension Agent, farmers group discussions, journals, the web and other related sources. A binary logistic regression model was employed to identify the major factors associated with the adoption of IRVs. Both the descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to observe mean and percentage differences between adopter and non-adopter categories. Descriptive statistics included frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviations and inferential statistics included t-test, chi-square, and logistic regression analysis. The result of regression analysis showed that education level, family size, farm size, extension contact and seed access had significant positive influence on the adoption of IRVs. The result found that only 37.31% of the households were engaged in the cultivation of IRVs in terms of household number and in terms of area coverage only 7.22% of the potential area were cultivated under IRVs. Damage by vertebrate pest especially the wild boar, rodents, and birds were the major problem faced by the farmers in cultivating the IRVs followed by lack of adequate information about IRVs and the high cost of inputs like seeds, fertilizer, pesticides etc. Therefore, it is suggested that seeds should be made readily available to the farmers through promotional program and the frequency of farmers and extension contact should be increased which would ultimately help in introducing new IRVs. Secondly, appropriate strategies should be developed by the Department of Agriculture (DoA) to mitigate the IRVs damage by vertebrate pests. Adult education should be provided to the adult farmer thereby updating and upgrading the knowledge and skills of the farmer. Besides, further research should be conducted in future by physically measuring the actual area cultivated under IRVs for obtaining more accurate result.