Archives of Current Research International

Water is one of the most essential and important natural resource which has to be conserved, that too especially groundwater. Since agriculture is the predominant water consumer, measures have to be taken to reduce water consumption by agriculture. Drip irrigation is one such a measure that reduces water use and hence a study to access the factors influencing the adoption and non-adoption of drip irrigation was undertaken. Western agro-climatic zone of Tamil Nadu was selected as the study area with 160 drip irrigated farms and 160 flood irrigated farms as the sample.The study was carried out by collecting primary data through pre-tested interview schedule and the collected data were processed to perform logistic regression and Garrett ranking analysis. The study found that age, education, farming experience do not have significant impact in adoption of drip irrigation. Factors like land holding, No. of wells, farm income, irrigation source and distance from the surface water source are found to influence the farmer’s decision in adoption of drip irrigation in the western agro-climatic zone. The same kind of results was also found when the reasons for adoption and non-adoption of drip irrigation were ranked. Wells as the only source for irrigation ranked first and availability of subsidy ranked second in case of drip irrigation adoption. Less subsidy, high initial cost and availability of more than one water source ranked first, second and third places respectively in case of non-adoption of drip irrigation.