Farmers’ perception and adoption behavior of Agricultural machineries – An
Empirical Evidence from Cauvery Delta Tamil Nadu

The study aimed to explore the agricultural machineries usage behavior and its direct and
indirect effects on livelihood of the delta farmers in Cauvery river region of Tamil Nadu. Four
villages namely, Pullavarayan kudikaadu, Idamelaiyur, Vaduvoor and Saathanur from Thiruvarur
district of Tamil Nadu have been selected based on land distribution and intensive agriculture.
The household survey was held in all the four villages. Based on the secondary data, the villages
were identified. Around 104 voluntary farm households were surveyed. The study found that,
because of Cauvery canal and availability of three phase current supply, majority of the
households relies on agriculture for their livelihood. The farm families that earn supplementary
income excluding animal rearing are above 90.00 %. About 22.50 % of the farm households are
collegiate, meagre proportion (5.62 %) of the farm Households leased out their land due to
ageing, migrated children and to preferentially allocate more time for their non-farm jobs. The
most prominent agricultural machineries used by the samples either by owning or through rent
are, Combined harvester (96.92%), Tractor (96.92%), Straw Baler (90.81%) Hand Sprayer
(76.53) and Rice Transplanter (70.40%). The cost savings using agricultural machineries over
traditional cultivation method as perceived by the respondents were, less than 25000 rupees
(48.97%), more than 25000 to 1 lakh rupees (40.81%) and more than 1 lakh rupees (10.20%).
Even though agricultural machineries proven economic benefit on field level, farmers are yet to
be convinced fully on its adoption this might be due to several insightful field level usage and
access problems.