Farmers' Perception of Problems of Sugarcane cultivation: A Pilot Study of Selected Villages of Kolhapur division

Sugarcane Farming is one of the important segments of Indian Agriculture because it is raw material to sugar industry for which India ranks second in the world economy. Indian sugar industry provides employment opportunity to nearly 50 million growers (Mangala & Shrinivasa, 2012:21) Hence, sugarcane farming has significant role in the agro economy as a whole. The present study covers the farmers' perception regarding fertilizer, irrigation, seed, disease and soil problem of sugarcane farming with reference to Kolhapur division: Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara. The farmers' perception towards fertilizer, irrigation, seed, disease and soil problem was needed to be studied. This paper has made an attempt to study the farmers' perception towards some aspects like Soil erosion due to inadequate fertilizer management, availability of training to farmers for quality seed production, availability of scientific disease management system .The present study explores the different functional aspects of the sugarcane farming that will help to understand their different problems. This study is also helpful to sugar factories and Government authorities to make appropriate policies and it will help to uplift the life of poor farmers. This study is also helpful to develop knowledge based system so that IT based farming help to improve cultivation practices.