Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure Farmers’ Perceptions of Agricultural Sustainability Using the COARSE Method

Sustainability in Agriculture is an essential pursuit in this rapidly expanding tech- driven world. The Farmer FIRST Programme is a flagship initiative of ICAR, aiming to prioritize farmers by integrating indigenous technologies with newly developed ones. This approach seeks to preserve sustainable and environmentally friendly technologies. The present study was conducted during 2024-25 in ATARI Zone-X, where two adopted and two non-adopted villages were selected from each of the five Institutes. From the adopted villages, 30 beneficiary farmers were randomly selected, and from the non-adopted villages, 10 non-beneficiary farmers were randomly selected, making a total sample size of 400. Through a thorough literature search and a preliminary survey among farmers, statements measuring farmers' perceptions of sustainability were gathered which were then on consultation with experts were checked and filtered. Using these statements a likert type of scale was developed using COARSE method which was then used to collect final data the responses from which were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis to validate the scale. The responses were collected to assess the perception of farmers regarding sustainability in agriculture. The majority of beneficiary farmers had a good (48.00%) perception, followed by fair (37.00%) and poor (15.00%) perceptions. In contrast, most of the non-beneficiary farmers had a fair (46.00%) perception, followed by poor (29.00%) and good (25.00%) perceptions. By implementing strategies like public awareness campaigns, peer learning, regular farmer-scientist interactions and by extension of farmer FIRST programme to non- adopted villages farmers can be educated about sustainability in agriculture.