A Study on Information Seeking Behaviour of the B.t. Cotton Growers in Akola District of Maharashtra

Even though Maharashtra has the highest area under Bt.Cotton cultivation in India, yet it trails Gujarat both in total production as well as in productivity of cotton crop. The reason is that most of the Bt.Cotton growers don’t get appropriate information regarding various improved Bt.Cotton cultivations practices. So keeping this in mind the present study was conducted with the objective of studying different information sources used by the Bt.Cotton growers to obtain various information about recommended cultivation practices. Present study was conducted in Akola taluka of Akola district in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra state. An Ex-post Facto design of social research was used for the present investigation. The study revealed that majority of the Bt.Cotton growers (70.83percentage) belonged to medium category in using of various information sources. Further it was found that among the personal localite sources respondents always contacted friends and progressive farmers, whereas, among the cosmopolite sources the respondents always contacted Krishi Sevak and participated in group communication. In case of mass media sources, respondents always used radio and television