Farmers’ Attitude towards Custom Hiring Centers: An Exploratory Study in Punjab

Stubble burning is a major threat to environment in trans- gangetic plain region, where there exists bright prospect to reap the benefits of custom hiring centers by leveraging the suitable farm machinery helpful in overcoming the stubble burning issue. Present study was conducted in Punjab state and three districts namely, Ludhiana, Sangrur, Moga were selected purposively due to highest stubble burning cases in last five years. From each district two block were selected randomly. Subsequently, three villages from each block were randomly selected. Finally, from each village 20 respondents were selected randomly constituting of total 360 farmers. Two scales were constructed exclusively for the study in order to measure the attitude of farmers towards custom hiring centres (CHCs) and elicitation of perception regarding stubble burning. Results indicated that majority of the respondents had favorable attitude towards CHCs, followed by 22.78 per cent of respondents having neutral attitude towards CHCs and only 8.89 per cent of respondents has unfavorable attitude towards CHCs. CHCs were not sufficient in number to cater the high demand during the peak seasons. Those machines which are of least demand should be replaced by machines with high demand. Majority of the respondents agreed that crop residue burning has a negative effect on plant health, air, human health, animal health, biodiversity, vehicular traffic and soil health. It was found that less than half (47.23%) of the respondent had high level of perception.