Preference of farmers between a set of selected indigenous and high yielding varieties of rice (Oryza sativa L.) in Assam

Assam Agricultural University is putting its innovative efforts to provide the best rice cultivars for the farmers of the country. Many high yielding varieties of rice have been released by the University till date with the motive of increasing the production and productivity of rice in the state. But it has been reported by many researchers that the traditional varieties are still cultivated by the farmers in a large scale in comparison to the High Yielding Varieties of rice. Therefore, it was found necessary to know the farmers’ preference of the HYVs over the traditional varieties of rice. The four major agro-ecological situation of Jorhat district were selected purposively for the present study. A total of 120 numbers of respondents was considered as the final sample of the study. To find out the preference of the rice varieties, matrix ranking was carried out with the participation of the farmers. The study revealed that the area under the HYVs was less in comparison to the traditional varieties of rice in the district and it was also revealed that traditional varieties were preferred by the farmers for Ahu, Sali and Bao rice in AES-I & AES-II and although the high yielding varieties were most preferred in AES III & AES IV, but the score range against each criteria of rice was found to be less. Therefore, the government and research wings should take initiatives for refinement of the HYVs and take initiatives to aware the farming community about the benefits of HYVs.