The Socio-economic Status of Cotton Farmers and their Attitude Towards Pesticide Use

Cotton accounts for the maximum share of pesticide consumption. Over the past decade, the perplexities in pest management intensified more insect species developing resistance to insecticides which was a consequence of excessive use of insecticides on the crop. For the study, multistage sampling procedure was adopted to select the respondents. Twenty cotton farmers from each village were post-stratified into small, medium and large farmers proportionately making a total sample of 120. The total costs as well as returns incurred were highest for large farmers as compared to medium and small farmers, but pesticides cost was more in case of small farmers. Around 54 farmers (45%) had spent ` 4500 to ` 5500 per ha for pesticide application. Most of the farmers do not know how to read literature on pesticide containers. It was astonishing to notice that 73.33 per cent of the farmers were exposed to or not using protective masks/coverings during pesticide application and farmers were found careless in handling pesticides