Development of an Index to Measure the Conservation Behaviour of Farmers

Meeting the demand of rising population and sustaining the quality of the environment are the two major challenges of Indian agriculture system. The conservation practices have the potential to achieve food security while also have the capacity to retain the environmental sustainability. This article was focussed with the construction of an index to assess the adoption of conservation practices by farmers. Based on the review of literature and discussion with the expert's, indicators and sub-indicators were identified and enlisted. Relevancy test method was followed in the construction of an index. The list of sub-indicators was sent to 75 experts with the request, to critically evaluate each sub-indicator for its relevancy to be included in the Conservation Behaviour Index (CBI). Out of 75 experts, 30 experts responded in time and at the earliest. The criteria to be followed in this procedure was sub-indicators having relevancy percentage above 75, relevancy weightage above 0.75 and mean relevancy score above 2.25 was considered for inclusion in Conservation Behaviour Index. Based on the above three criteria 56 sub-indicators were retained. Further the index has been administered in the study area and the scores obtained were analysed using cumulative frequency method to classify farmers into three categories.