Cashew (Anacardium occidentale) cultivation by smallholders in northern dry zone of Karnataka: an analysis of practices, impact, determinants and constraints

The study measured cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) cultivation practices, its impact and determinates and constraints faced by farmers in the Northern Dry Zone of Karnataka.An ‘ex-post-facto cause to effect’ design was used and findings indicated that the majority cashew farmers derived moderate socio-economic benefits, particularly with high social benefits in comparison to low economic benefits. Medium levels of social participation, extension participation, mass media exposure and opinion leadership were measured among the majority of the farmers practicing cashew cultivation. Impact on cropping pattern, labour engagement and farm expenditure were found to be low while an increase in family incomes and expenditure were reported. The regression analysis revealed that four personal variables, viz. cashew farmer type of family, land used for cashew, and one economic variable, i.e., cultivable land available in acres as exerting a significant positive contribution towards explaining the variability in socio-economic impact. The variables used in the study could together explain up to 67% variability in socio-economic impact. The stepwise regression model developed to predict socio-economic impact explained up to 83% of the variation in socioeconomic impact using the predictors; importance given to cashew, years of experience in farming, cosmopoliteness, extension participation, land used for other crops and net income from cashew farming. The study also faced challenges such as recall bias among respondents and limited accessibility to remote cashew-growing areas. The study revealed major constraints faced by farmers like poor price quoted by traders and the price fluctuations for raw cashew nut, scarcity of hired labourers, incidence of tea mosquito bug owing to crop loss and death of yielding trees due to cashew stem and root borer attack.