Diffusion process of innovation learning system the rice wheat production system of the punjab

A number of technological packages are introduced overtime to achieve sustainable productivity but their adoption is very low. The reason behind this is that majority of farmers still using conventional methods result in low productivity of crops. There are many ways of innovation spread including including formal and informal mechanisms by which specific community (i.e. farmers) accesses knowledge. Therefore there is a need to continuously assess the existing dissemination mechanism for new new agricultural techniques to get the optimum benefit of the new innovations in knowledge for enhancing agricultural productivity through utilization of latest knowledge generated by the national research system. The present study is an effort to identify the prevailing agricultural innovations learning system in the Rice-Wheat area of the Punjab. A rigorous survey and analytical procedures were used to identify how the end users are learning knowledge about new agricultural technologies. It was found that irrespective of gender type, the friends and relatives, fellow/progressive farmers and radio/television are three major sources of obtaining information. The farmers' visits/contact with fellow farmers and input dealers was found relatively stronger than other information sources. (author)