Attitude can exert a specific influence upon one’s response to people, objects, and situations with which it is related. It could affect our actions positively or negatively. Understanding the attitude of farmers towards any activity helps us to formulate better strategies to reduce the vulnerabilities of farmers. The attitude of growers is very important for the adoption of any new agricultural technology. In Kerala, IFS is viewed as a viable option for ensuring optimum production and profitability from unit area due to the significant prevalence of homestead farming and marginal farmers. Realising this fact, many programmes were launched for promoting integrated farming systems throughout the state. The attitude of farmers towards IFS units has a large impact on their upkeep. In the present study, an attitude scale was constructed for measuring the attitude of respondents towards Integrated Farming Systems. The Likert’s summated rating method was used to construct the scale. The scale consisted of 22 statements among which 13 statements chosen for the study were positive, while nine were negative. It was administered to 180 farmers who adopted IFS in their units. The result showed that 58.33 per cent of the total respondents had a neutral attitude towards IFS, followed by a favourable attitude (31.67%). It was important to note that just 10 per cent of the farmers were found to fall into the unfavourable category. The district wise analysis showed that, among the selected districts, Kollam district had the highest percentage of farmers in the favourable category followed by Kannur district.

Keyword: Attitude; Categorization; Integrated farming system; Likert’s summated rating; Scale construction.