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Abstract
Bio-fertilisers (BF) and bio-control agents (BCA) are the biotechnological interventions tried to
improve crop production and protection for sustainable agricultural development. This paper based on a
study, conducted in the state of Kerala, depending both on primary and secondary data, analyses the
consumption pattern and farmer responses to the technology and cases thereof. A total of 840 farmers
were surveyed using a structured, pretested questionnaire. Later on, the crop-wise use was estimated
through a post stratification of the data. Logit analysis was done to study the adoption behaviour of the
respondents. In Kerala, BF/BCA is produced by the public sector, private sector and NGO, and is
distributed either directly to the farmers or indirectly through the retail shops. A sizeable part of
production is sold to the Department of Agriculture itself as part of department schemes where the
BF/BCA is given at subsidy. The analysis on the level of adoption of BF/BCA showed that the percentage
of adoption is more in the case of BCA when compared to BF. The adoption of BF was found to be less
than 1 per cent and for BCA it was around 11 per cent. The logistic regression analysis to study the
adoption behaviour of the respondents (rice farmers) showed that educational level, farming experience,
returns from farming and extension of technical support received by the farmers are the major factors that
influenced the decision making with regard to the adoption of bioagents. Though subsidies facilitate the
economic access to the technology, it did not ensure the sustained adoption and scientifically proper
application. The analysis supports the statistically significant influence of technical support in the
adoption of the technology, which underlines the importance of infrastructural and technological support
mechanism in the wider adoption of the technology. Thus subsidies can be considered as a necessary but
not a sufficient condition for the sustained technology adoption.