Study of problems and constraints of tomato growers in adoption of recommended production and post harvest practices at Union Council Mithiani district Noushahro Feroze

Sample size of 77 respondents was assigned to ascertain their demographic and objective specified information, i.e. tomato cultivation practices, production patterns, marketing and associated problems. The results showed that (48.05%) growers were in the age group of 41-50 years, 37.66 percent were of 31-40 years, 10-39 percent had their age 51 years or above, while only 3.90 percent of the respondents had age between 21-30 years. 28.57 % had very low level of education (primary), while 24.68 % having educated up to Matric, 12.90 were illiterate and 9.09% had been educated up to intermediate level. 40.28% of the growers had farming experience of 16-20 years, 20.78 % of 11-15 years, 18.18 % had 21-25 years of experience, 11.69% had 6-10 years, 6.49% had 26-30 years and only 2.60 percent had farming experience of 31 years or above. 44.16% of the respondents had land holdings between 21-30 acres, 33.77% of 1-20 acres, 16.88% had of 31-40 acres and only 5.19 percent having land holding in the range of 41-50 acres. 44.16% farm were situated within the distance range of 5 kilometers from the road, while 28.57% situated 5 kilometers distance from the road access, 14.28% farms were on road side, while 12.99% farms were found situated near the market. 90.90% of the farmers cultivated tomato on an area between 1-5 acres, while remaining 9.10 percent in the range of 6-10 acres. 53.25% of the respondent tomato growers was landlords, while 31.17 percent were owner-cum-operators and only 15.58% were simple tenants. It was noted from the ranking regarding information of the technical field aspects for different tomato production practices that awareness/information of shortage of irrigation water was ranked at 1, harvesting was ranked at 2, farmyard manure ranked at No.3, tomato grading at rank 4, tomato packing at ranked 5. Awareness/ information about the insect pests was at rank 6, while handling of tomato after harvest was ranked at 7, respectively. Information about plant spacing, plating time and awareness/ information about the retailers were ranked at 8, 9 and 10 respectively; while respondents assigned rank 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 to awareness/ information about commission agent, wholesale market, tomato price, marketing system and information about the marketing channels respectively. The knowledge about varieties was ranked at 16, transport ranked at 17, assembly market was ranked at 18, information about tomato diseases was ranked at 19 and awareness/ information regarding fertilizers was ranked at 20. The least rank 21 was assigned to the knowledge regarding terminal markets. The farmers further perceived that non-availability of storage facility ranked-1, non-availability of crop insurance ranked as No. 2, proper information for crop processing as No.3, no stability in the tomato price as rank-4 problem, monopoly of the middlemen at rank-5, sensitivity of tomato crop to diseases and viruses problem at rank-6, high risk involvement in the crop as No.7 and high cost of inputs ranked as No.8 problem in adoption of recommended production -and post harvest practices. The sources of technical information were also ranked by the farmers and the main source of information they considered was neighbouring farmers (rank 1), while friends, radio and extension agents ranked at 2, 3 and 4 respectively. T.V. as a source of technical information was ranked at 5, magazines were ranked at 6 and research organizations were ranked at 7 respectively. Research publications and Internet accesses were ranked least at No. 8 and rank 9 respectively. The demographic characteristics of the respondents had negligible to low and substantial correlation with awareness of production and post harvest practices. Awareness of the sources of information was also significantly associated with different demographic characteristics of the respondents.