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Farmers’ Attitude Towards Sustainable Agriculture

M.N. Uddin
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh

M.A.M. Miah
Professor
Dept. of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh

M.H. Rahman
Associate Professor
Dept. of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh

A.H. Chowdhury
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

The study was undertaken to determine farmers’ attitude towards sustainable agriculture and to explore the relationships between thirteen selected characteristics of the farmers and their attitude towards sustainable agriculture. The study was conducted in three unions of Muktagacha upazila under Mymensingh district, namely Mancon, Boragram and Kashimpur. One hundred farmers were randomly selected as the sample of the study from a population of 630 farmers. Data were collected from the farmers using personal interview schedule during the 10 March to 9 April 2004. Descriptive statistics and Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation are used to analyze data. Equal proportion of farmers (39%) having moderately favorable and highly favorable attitude towards sustainable agriculture. On the other hand, 4% and 18% farmers had highly unfavorable and moderately unfavorable attitude towards sustainable agriculture respectively. Farmers level of education, farm size, annual family income, training exposure, knowledge of environment friendly farming, experience of environment friendly farming practice and innovativeness had positive and significant relationship with their attitude towards sustainable agriculture. On the other hand, age, family size, farming experience, extension media exposure, cosmopoliteness and organizational participation did not show significant relationship with the same regard. The major problems confronted by the farmers in practicing sustainable agriculture were: lack of insects/ diseases resistance varieties of crops, lack of training facilities related to sustainable agriculture, lack of knowledge about environment friendly production technology of crops, and lack of knowledge about IPM.

Keywords: Farmers, Attitude, Sustainable agriculture

Location: Unions namely Nimuria, Adpakhia, Suhila, Binod Bari under Muktagacha Upazila of Mymensingh district.

Start Date:

End Date:

Program Area: Socio-economic and Policy

Commodity:

Objectives:

To determine the attitude of farmers’ towards sustainable agriculture
To find out the relationship between the attitude of the farmers and their selected characteristics
To ascertain problem confrontation of the farmers in practicing sustainable agriculture

Methodology:

The study was conducted in four villages of three unions namely Nimuria, Adpakhia, Suhila, Binod Bari under Muktagacha Upazila of Mymensingh district. The rationale behind selection of this Upazila is that it is one of the project area of LIFE-NOPEST phase II project of CARE-Bangladesh. The physical, social and cultural heritage of the people of this area are similar in many cases with other areas of the project. Muktagacha Upazila is mostly facilitated by Kacha, semipucca roads and a few pucca roads. Muktagacha Upazila is one of the leading project area which is located in Mymensingh district. Six hundred thirty (630) were the population of the study, among them 100 farmers (16% of the total population) were selected as the sample of the study by using simple random sampling. In order to collect relevant information for the study, a structured interview schedule was prepared carefully keeping the objectives of the study in mind. The schedule contained both open and closed form of questions with a test constructed for measuring farmers’ knowledge of environment friendly farming and a scale to reflect farmers’ attitude towards sustainable agriculture. The attitude scale was developed following the Likert (1932) method of summated ratings. Eleven positive and eleven negative statements were carefully constructed to develop the scale. The positive and negative statements were arranged randomly throughout the scale to facilitate the respondents’ real response to be revealed. A respondent was asked to indicate his opinion about each of the statements along with a five point scaling as “strongly agree” “agree’ “no opinion” “ disagree” and “strongly disagree” and corresponding scores were 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 respectively. The attitude score could range from 22 to 110 where 22 indicate highly unfavorable attitude and 110 indicate highly favorable attitude. Data were collected during March 10 to April 09, 2004 through face to face interview by using structured interview schedule. Pearson's Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient (r) was computed for testing the relationship between the concerned variables

Source of Information: Bangladesh Journal of Extension Education ISSN 1011-3916 Volume 18, No.1&2, 2006:39-46 Research Article

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

The findings revealed that respondents of the study area had satisfactory level of attitude towards sustainable agriculture. This was so observed because of the development efforts taken by both GOs and NGOs specially CARE-Bangladesh’s activities. Thus, it would be easier for a development organization to take specific programme to ensure sustainability of the agriculture in study area. It can be concluded that activities of CARE-Bangladesh like training, demonstration, field day, group meetings, other persuasive activities and overall technical and financial support might have contributed in favor attitude of farmers towards sustainable agriculture. The main problems confronted by the farmers in practicing sustainable agriculture were: lack of insects/ diseases resistance varieties of crops, lack of training facility related to sustainable agriculture, lack of knowledge about environment friendly production technology of crops, and lack of knowledge about IPM. It can also be concluded that any intervention regarding sustainable agriculture can minimize the difference between what our farmers are doing and what they should do in this context of environmental issues by changing their attitude. Regular training should be arranged on different alternative crop production practices. These would help the farmers to gain required knowledge of environment friendly practices. Farmers should be motivated to adopt different environment friendly farming practices. The experience of environment friendly farming would change the farmers attitude towards sustainable agriculture.

Knowledge Management: Journal