Locale and sample: Batiaghata upazila is located close to Khulna city and one of the largest upazila in respect of area of Khulna district. This area is easily accessible by road and oilseeds are widely grown crop of the area, and above all, well known to the researchers as they were the faculties and students of adjacent Khulna University. That is why, the area was selected as the locale of the study. Batiaghata upazila has 7 unions (divided in to 21 blocks comprising 168 villages). On the basis of access convenience, 3 villages (Fultola, Debitola and Hetalbunia) of 2 blocks (Fultola and Baherdanga) were purposively selected and 82 oilseed growers of those 3 villages were randomly selected and interviewed as the sample of the study. Thus the sample selection method was purposive random sampling technique (Tongco, 2007). Present status and problem confrontation of oilseed cultivation were main focus to be assessed in this study. At the same time the following characteristics of the farmers were selected to explore relationships with one of the main focuses (problem confrontation): age, educational qualification, family type, family size, farm size, experience in oilseed cultivation, organizational participation, annual family income, extension contact, cosmopoliteness, training, knowledge on oilseed cultivation, attitude towards oilseed cultivation and practice regarding oilseed cultivation. Standard procedures were followed for measuring the variables. The respondents were asked whether they had received any training on agriculture or not for measuring training status. If the response was positive, they had been further asked whether the training was on oilseed production or not. By this way the number of training received by the respondents was differentiated and calculated. Five questions were asked to each respondent to determine knowledge on oilseed cultivation. The questions covered different aspects of oilseed cultivation. Each question was assigned by ‘2’ marks. If an oilseed farmer answered all of those questions correctly, obtained ‘10’ marks. If any farmer failed to answer any of the question correctly, obtained ‘0’marks. So the range varied between 0 to 10; where, 0 means no knowledge, and 10 means highest knowledge. Attitude refers to the individual farmer’s outlook and positive or negative reaction and emotional feelings towards oilseed cultivation. A five point Likert scale was used to determine the attitude of the farmers where ‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘undecided’, ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’ were assigned 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 scores, respectively, for the positive statements. Whereas, for the negative statements- ‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘undecided’, ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’ were assigned 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 scores, respectively (Likert, 1932). There were five positive and five negative statements for calculating the total scores of attitude towards oilseed cultivation. So the scores ranged from 10 to 50; where, 10 means least favorable attitude and 50 means highest positive attitude. Practice was assessed and described by obtaining firsthand information from the respondents on (a) last five years cropping pattern , (b) cultivated major oilseed crops, and (c) purpose of oilseed cultivation (Table 6). There were lots of practice issues regarding oilseed cultivation; however, for data handling convenience only the mentioned three aspects had been included. A scale was used for measuring the problem (Bashar, 2006). The interview schedule contained fifteen possible statements regarding the faced problems. Each respondent indicated the extent of hindrance caused to him by each of the problem through five responses (mentioned below). Problem Confrontation Index (PCI) was calculated by using following formula:
PCI = (N1×0)+ (N2×1)+ (N3×2)+ (N4×3)+ (N5×4) CI = Problem Con N1 = No problem N2 = Less severe N3 = Medium N4 = Severe N5 = Highly severe
Data were collected after preparing the final interview schedule using face to face interviews by the researchers themselves during May 07 to 27, 2017. After that data were edited and transferred to coding sheet with numerical scores given to each question. Data analysis was done by using computer with SPSS and MS Excel. The present status of oilseed cultivation was collected by interviewing the Upazila Agriculture Officer (UAO) of Batiaghata upazila. The researchers interviewed the UAO on a prescheduled day at the office compound where the incumbent UAO furnished the required data from different office records and notes. Pearson Product Moment correlation coefficient was used to determine the strength of association between the respondents selected characteristics and their problem confrontation in oilseed cultivation