Impact Assessment of Integrated Pest Management Technology on Kharif Paddy Cultivation in Vidarbha Region of Maharashtra, India

The Eastern Vidarbha region consist of Bhandara, Gondia, Gadchiroli and Chandrapur and some part of the Nagpur district is famous for specialized farming and paddy as major crop. The total area in Maharashtra state was 15.53 lakh hectares with annual production 34.81 lakh tons of rice (Anonymous 2023-24). About 80.00 per cent gross cropped area in this region is under paddy. IPM has been proved to be a cost minimization technique. Losses in Paddy yield the tune 10 to 25 per cent occurs due to attack of insect pest and disease. Being the topic of such high importance from cultivators point of view, the research topic has been selected i.e. Impact Assessment of Integrated Pest Management technology on Kharif Paddy cultivation in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra State its economic investigation in different level of adoption of IPM technologies.

The study was carried out with the main goals of determining the extent to which recommended technology has been adopted in Kharif paddy production by using principle component analysis approach and for develop the composite index, examining the input utilization of Kharif paddy at varying levels of IPM adoption, and workout cost effectiveness and profitability of kharif paddy at different level of adoption of IPM technology.

The study was conducted in the districts of Gadchiroli in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra State, India. Three tahasil, Gadchiroli, Chamorshi and Dhanora were chosen from these districts, and a total of 120 farmers were selected from seven villages, namely Gadchiroli, Indala, Hirapur, Chamorshi, Krishna Nagar, Heti, Kanartola. The primary data, which cover the years 2023–2024. Total 120 farmers, 25 farmers were classified as high adopters, 76 farmers were classified as medium adopters, and 19 farmers were classified as low adopters.

As a result of input usage, the group with a high adoption level utilized the most human labour. Farmyard manure is used most in the high adopter group (49.87 quintal per hectare), followed by low adopters (31.73 qtl/ha) and medium adopters (34.45 qtl/ha) because the farmers can apply only owned farm FYM. The reasons of lower used of FYM, due to shortage of cattle’s population. The reasons of low adopter, high expenditure of Integrated pest management components was the 89.00 per cent farmers can use chemically control that means 2 to 3 spraying was use in kharif paddy in low adopter group.

The B:C ratio at Cost ‘A1’ was 1.79, 1.85 and 1.92 in low, medium and high adopters, respectively, while B:C ration at Cost ‘C2’ for low, medium, high adopter were 1.12,1.19,1.25 respectively. The results concluded that the low adopters group are not making more profit. It indicates that, as adoption of technology increases the yield level of crop and so that the net returns also increases. The reduction in per quintal production cost at Cost ‘C2’ over low adopter group were Rs. 188.06/-. Paddy productivity has been reported increased by 19.84 per cent with the reduction in the cost of Rs. 7375.89 in high level of adoption of Integrated Pest Management Technology.

The findings of the present study with regards to overall adoption of integrated pest management practices of paddy by paddy growers were observe for wide adoption of IPM technology in Kharif Paddy, Government should take initiative for production of bio-agents and available the pheromane trap and yellow sticky trap through establishing unit in Government Agricultural Offices and Krishi Vigyan Kendra and encourage the rural youth for establishing Units at taluka level.