Investment, adoption, attitude and extent of participation of farmers in soil conservation projects in the Western Ghats of India

Sekar Chellappan and R Sudha

International Journal of Social Economics, 2015, vol. 42, issue 3, 251-275

Abstract: Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the investment pattern, adoption behaviour, attitude of farmers towards conservation compliance programmes and the extent of participation of farmers in soil conservation projects in the Western Ghats of India. Design/methodology/approach - – For the present study, multistage purposive sampling was followed. The sample respondents were identified for the survey in all the five categories of watersheds (very high, high, medium, low and very low priority watersheds) in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu at the rate of 50 farm respondents in each category. Since the investment among the five categories of watersheds did not show any significant differences, the sample farmers were post stratified as marginal, small, medium and large farmers based on farm size for further analysis. Findings - – The investment analysis showed a benefit cost ratio (BCR) of 1.03 for staggered trenches for tea to 1.40 for bench terrace for carrot. For annual crops, the BCR for bench terrace varied from 1.03 for cabbage to 1.32 for carrot. Among the soil conservation technologies, in tea plantation, stone wall had the highest net present value (NPV) of Rs. 74,335. Staggered trench had the lower NPV Rs. 19,237 among all conservation structures. The results of the contingent valuation showed that cropped area, farm size, on-farm income positively and significantly influenced the willingness to pay (WTP) towards soil conservation. Family size and age of the farmer negatively influenced the WTP of the respondents significantly. The multinomial logit model indicated that staggered trench had direct impact on productivity. In tea plantation, staggered trench adoption was influenced by area under plantation crops, farm size, educational level and land slope. The participation index was very low (

Keywords: Contingent valuation; Conservation compliance; People’s participation index; Soil conservation; WTP (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:ijsepp:v:42:y:2015:i:3:p:251-275

DOI: 10.1108/IJSE-10-2013-0219

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