Awareness and perception of farmers about social forestry programme implemented by the government

A study on the awareness level and perception of the farmers of Dharwad, North Karnataka was conducted wrt government social forestry programme. Majority of the respondents were, young, studied up to high school had agriculture as their main occupation, had high social contacts, were aware of the extension programmes and were exposed to the mass media. From the data it was revealed that majority of the farmers had a view that social forestry helped to reduce soil erosion (98.4%), check air pollution (96.8%), provide wood for making farm implements (96.0%), fodder for cattle (96.0%) and forest products like fruits, medicinal plants etc (94.4%). As many as 94.4 per cent farmers opined that it was a good programme to convert wasteland for forestry purpose. Contrary to it, some farmers did not favour the programme as it lacked subsidy factor (52.0%), its benefits reached only the big farmers (60.0%) and the programme was not as much paying as agriculture (77.6%).