COMPARATIVE STUDY ON KNOWLEDGE LEVEL OF PARTICIPANT AND NON PARTICIPANT FARMERS OF FARMERS FIELD SCHOOLS

The present study was conducted in Bangalore rural district of Karnataka to assess the knowledge level of participant (n=60) and non participant (n=60) farmers of Farmers Field Schools with the total sample size of 120 respondents. The results indicated that 58.4 per cent of maize growing participants had high level of knowledge where as 66.7 per cent of non participants possessed low level of knowledge. In case of finger millet 70.9 per cent of participants had high level of knowledge where as 62.5 per cent of non participants had low level of knowledge and a significant majority (75.0 %) of aerobic rice growing participants possessed high level of knowledge whereas 58.4 per cent of non participants had low level of knowledge. There exists a significant (p<0.01) difference in knowledge level between participants and non- participants in cultivation practices on Maize, Finger millets and Aerobic rice crops. It is also evident from the findings that the mean knowledge also established significant (p<0.01) variation between participants and non-participants.