Factors Affecting Adoption of Improved Tomato Technologies in District Mardan

Abstract

FAO in 2014 ranked 6^th position to tomato among 15 vegetables in terms of world total annual production, it is an important vegetable which is rich in vitamin C and consumed in almost each house. The research was conducted in District Mardan of Khyber Pukhtunkhawa (KP) to analyze factors affecting adoption of improved tomato technologies in March-April 2016. District Mardan has three tehsils; Mardan, Takht Bhai, and Katlang.  One tehsil i.e. Mardan was selected purposively on the basis of tomato cultivation. Two Union Councils (UC) i;e Babini and Fatima from the selected tehsil were randomly selected  and two villages from each UC were randomly selected. Those tomato growers who got training from extension department were interviewed through well-structured interview schedule. Thus, making a total of 104 respondents. The results of the study show that majority (43%) of the respondents were young, literate (85%) having formal education up-to some extent, owner cultivator (49%), majority (81%) have total tomato cultivated area between 1-3 acres. Training was given to all the farmers, results of t-test showed that after getting training; tomato yield and income was increased. It is concluded that\ all the respondents adopted HYVs, high price of agricultural inputs, non-availability of cold storage, non- availability of certified vegetable seeds, pest and diseases incidence lack of agriculture credit facilities, improper/ defective marketing of produce, lack of fertilizers and lack of technical knowledge were the factors affecting adoption of improved tomato technologies in the study area.