Abstract :
Agricultural sector is the largest water user of the country accounting 70 per cent in world water use, the growing challenge for agricultural development is how to produce more food for increasing population with less water. The estimated land area with irrigated potential in Tamil Nadu is 5.65 million hectares but only 3.19 million hectares of area are irrigated. Continuously, uncontrolled use of water resource leads to exploitation of ground water levels have gone down to uneconomic levels due to over extraction. There are different ways and means of advanced technologies to produce more food with less amount of water. One such technology is drip irrigation. The government also implemented subsidy schemes to encourage the farmers to adopt irrigation technologies. This gives a greater opportunity to drip irrigation companies to market their products by improving their brand image. Brand preference has become pivotal point of differentiation in the market. The present study would focus on determinants of brand preference in drip irrigation system among coconut farmers. Pollachi taluk of Coimbatore district was purposively selected because of coconut crop contributes two third of cultivated area. Data collected from 100 randomly selected farmers those exclusively growing coconut using pretested interview schedule. Percentage analysis, Factor analysis, Logit regression, Garrett ranking and likert scale analysis methods were used to analyze the data. The study revealed that water saving and labour cost were the most influencing factor for the adoption of drip irrigation system. Immediate response by sales executives, market promotion, peer group influence, quality of materials and price were the major determinants of brand preference of farmers. Awareness adoption ratio of subsurface drip and inline drip system was 1:0.50 and 1:0.72, respectively and none has adopted automation technology. The farmers were satisfied with the price, availability of spare parts and government subsidies but highly unsatisfied with after sales service provided by the marketers of drip system.
Keyword :
drip irrigation system, awareness, adoption, brand