Exploratory study on ITK practices prevailing in Pudukkottai district, Tamil Nadu

Abstract

India, being a tropical country with fifteen agro ecological zones, is confronted with climate change influences through droughts, floods, cyclones, heat waves, hailstorms, and coastal salinity. The climate change remains a potential challenge to farm sustainability. It also evolved as an impending threat to socio-economic status of rural population. For sustainable farming and climate change resilience, Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) could help growers in broad spectrum. The ITK system though derived out of informal experimentation, it has been developed by the community based on their experiences and incessant improvement over generations. Therefore, identifying and documenting of ITK practices is very much imperative. In this context, an exploratory research study was conducted to document the extent of awareness and community’s perceived benefits of using ITK practices along with the prevailing ITK practices in Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu. It was revealed that majority of the respondents’ of about 73% and 74% were aware of crop management practices and crop protection measures respectively. Only one third of the respondents (38%) were familiarised with indigenous poultry management practices. A vast majority of the respondents (75%) perceived considerable reduction in farm expenditures by following ITK practices.