Technology Adoption by Coffee Growers

Coffee is one of the major horticultural exported crop. The coffee growers are looking the coffee cultivation has an enterprise/industry for the reason that a huge amount of finance, manpower, land, input is involved in coffee production. As coffee production involves more of energy, huge financial and human involvement there is an adoption of good and improved production practices by coffee growers to get good yield and income. Hence, there is a need to study extent of adoption of improved production practices of coffee technologies by coffee growers. The study was conducted in Chikkamagaluru and Kodagu District of Karnataka to study the extent of adoption practices of coffee growers. Random sampling method was used to select 120 respondents. The primary data was collected from respondents using pre-tested interview schedule. For this purpose, an ex-post facto research design was employed. From the study of the overall adoption of improved cultivation practices of coffee by the respondents, it was found that the majority (40.83 %) of the respondents belonged to the medium adoption category, followed by 33.34 per cent and 25.83 per cent of the respondents belonged to the high and low adoptive categories respectively. Majority (86.66 %) of the respondents had got optimum yield and 99.16 per cent had adopted cherry as their processing practice and 59.16 per cent of the respondents had adopted the parchment processing method of Coffee. And, 33.33 per cent of the respondents had adopted recommended grade specifications. Adequate knowledge about the recommended package of practices is the pre-requisite for use in the cultivation of crops. It is a fact that, recommended practices are major contributing factors to yield. So, inadequate knowledge about recommended practices leads to their improper adoption. The farmers were not fully aware of the recommended varieties, application of FYM, chemical fertilizers, bio fertilizer and pest and disease control measures. These are complex practices and require more education about practices in a more practical way.