Performance of Soil Testing Service in Bhopal District of Madhya Pradesh Chouhan R. S., Kumar Dushyant, Sharma H. O. Agro-Economic Research Centre, Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Jabalpur – 482 004, Madhya Pradesh Online published on 9 October, 2012. Abstract The paper has studied the impact of soil testing service being provided to the farmers in the Bhopal district of Madhya Pradesh in terms of infrastructural availability, growth of sample target, adopting of recommendations by the farmers, cost of analysis and its sustainability and constraints in adoption of recommendations by the farmers. The study is based on the primary data collected from 50 farmers from Phanda and Berasia blocks of Bhopal districts; these were selected randomly from the list of such farmers who had availed the soil testing services of the Laboratory during the year 2005–06. The secondary data were collected from the published records of Soil Testing Laboratory, Bhopal. The study has revealed that only about 43 per cent farmers adopted the recommendations of the Laboratory on seed, fertilizer and plant protection chemicals. It is also observed that on adoption of recommendations, the cost of production of different crops decreased while net income increased. The constraints reported by the farmers in adoption of recommendations included high cost, difficulty in adoption, low credibility of soil testing report, and long distance to laboratory. Top Keywords Soil testing service, agricultural production, impact analysis, Madhya Pradesh. Top |