ABSTRACT
Aims: Tomatoes benefit local farmers because of their excellent storage and truck-gardening capabilities. Because of local demand, tomatoes are a prominent commercial vegetable production in the Bhadohi area. A Frontline demonstration was held to cover the aforementioned possibility and impact of increase farmer earnings.Place and Duration of Study: The current study was conducted by ICAR-IIVR - Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Bhadohi for five years in a row from 2018–19 to 2022–23 in the farmers' fields in various areas of the district using front-line demonstration.Methodology: Over the investigation's five years, a total of 112 demonstrations were held at farmer fields on 5.0 ha of land. Each frontline demonstration was set up on 0.1 ha of land, with the nearby 0.3 ha serving as the comparison control (farmer's practice). KVK scientists gathered information on yield, production costs, and returns from farmers' practice plots (control plots) and front-line demonstration plots. Finally, the formulas proposed by Samui et al. [1] was used to calculate the extension gap, technology gap, and technology index.Results: Under the five-year FLD program, the average extension gap was 140.9 q/ha, the technology gap was 184.74 q/ha, and the technology indexwas 30.79 percent. The benefit cost ratio of tomato ranged from 5.02 to 7.44 in demonstration plots and from 3.99 to 5.74 in farmer’s practice plots during five years of demonstration with an average of 2.60 in demonstration and 2.09 under farmer’s practices. Conclusion: Front-line example shows how new technology may boost output and profit .The Bhadohi districts of Uttar Pradesh's mid plain have improved vegetable production, consumption, nutritional security, and overall livelihood security as a result of the productivity gain under FLD over existing tomato cultivation practices. This has increased awareness and inspired other farmers in the district to adopt the demonstrated technologies for tomato production.
ABSTRACT
Front-Line Demonstration (FLD) is a long-term educational activity carried out systematically by agricultural experts in the field of farmers to demonstrate the value of new practices/technologies in the micro-agriculture situation. The aim of the FLD was to demonstrate improved pulses technologies for production potential. Improved technologies include the use of improved varieties, seed treatment with Rhizobium and PSB culture, sowing methods, balanced fertilizer application and improved pest control techniques. The results of pulses harvested crop in 2021-2022 showed that improved varieties with improved practice packages recorded a higher yield compared to farmers’ practices. The improved technologies saw yield increases of 26.33 %, 24.63 %, 23.41 % and 22.83 % yield increase over farmer practices in green gram, chick pea, pigeon pea and black gram respectively. The average percentage yield increased by 24.30 % over farmers’ practices. The mean technological yield gap was highest for chickpea (3.47 q/ha), followed by pigeon pea (1.36 q/ha), green gram (1.34 q/ha) and black gram (1.26 q/ha). The maximum mean extension yield gap in the study was recorded in pigeon pea at 11.83 q/ha followed by black gram (5.22 q/ha) and green gram (3.57 q/ha), while the lowest extension yield gap was observed in chickpea (2.44 q/ha). The technology index varied between 7.16 and 17.35% while the lowest (7.16) was recorded for pigeon pea. The highest gross return (Rs. 81,654/ha), net return (Rs. 56,370/ha) and benefit-to-cost ratio (3.23) was recorded with chickpea demonstration followed by Black gram and green gram while lowest gross return (Rs. 44,848/ha), net return (Rs.24,634 /ha) and benefit cost ratio (2.22), which was markedly higher than gross return (Rs. 36,342/ha), net return (Rs.16,430/ha) and benefit cost ratio (1.83) in farmers practice. The improved technologies yielded a higher gross return and, net return with a higher benefit-to-cost ratio than farmers’ practices.