Impact assessment of plant clinics on farm income of farmers in the Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

Plant clinics are a novel channel of providing low-cost and regular plant health services to farmers in developing countries. Limited research has been conducted on the assessment of plant clinics in Pakistan. The plant clinics are playing an effective role in agricultural development through the dissemination of technical guidance to the farmers. This study was conducted in the Punjab province of Pakistan to assess the impact of plant clinics on the income of farmers. A total of 353 randomly selected farmers were interviewed from the two districts of Punjab province, Gujranwala and Multan through a face-to-face interview technique. Collected data were analyzed through the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Along with the descriptive analysis, the Ordinal Logistics Regression (OLR) model was applied to estimate the impact of plant clinics on the income of the farmers. Findings indicated that advisory services served by plant doctors were useful for the farmers. Plant protection relate services were more useful as compared to the agronomic attributes of the crops. Perhaps, the services rendered helped farmers to curtail their cost of production. Later, the OLR analysis confirmed an increase in income of those farmers who perceived the usefulness of providing advisory services to a high level. This study urged plant doctors to pay more attention to the agronomic attributes of the crops.