A Comparative analysis on the attitude of farmers and practices followed by them regarding agrochemical usage on rice crop in the Amritsar district of Punjab.

Agrochemicals are widely used in Indian agriculture for crop protection and to increase yield.They are known to have a negative impact on both the environment and human health. This study aims to explore the attitude of rice farmersand variouspractices followed by themregarding agrochemical usage in the Amritsar district of Punjab. A five-level Likert scale questionnaire was applied to measure the respondents’ attitude. The data was collected from 100 respondents, compiled, and interpreted in accordance with the study’s objectives. The farmers were all men belonging to the age group of 24-43 years (45 %). A total of 64 percent of the respondents lived in nuclear households, specifically those with a medium family size of between 5-8 individuals, which made up 44 percent of the population researched.About 38 percent of the farmers have semi-medium (5-10 acre) and medium (10-25 acre) operational land holdings. Agriculture came out as the primary occupation of the majority of the farmers, with approximately 77 percent of them engaged in this sector. Only four per cent of them participated in any training or extension programs on the use of agrochemicals because the majority were unaware of it.Farmers were found to have a low amount of mass media exposure, with only 56 percent of them reporting any such exposure. About 65 per cent of the farmers indicated a highly favorable attitude of the use of agrochemicals. It was also revealed that farmers follow various kinds of practices regarding agrochemical usage like soil testing, applying neem-coated urea, usingleaf color chart, ETL (Economic Threshold Level) observation, and a lot more practices which highlights the need foreducational initiatives to increase awareness about various practices that can lead to improved rice cultivation and agrochemical usage. It was also revealed that farmers face various challenges like high prices of agrochemicals, lack or awareness and many other which impact the growth and overall production.