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Farmers’ Response to Flood Vulnerability in a Flood Prone Area of NARSingdi District, Bangladesh

A. Hossain
Former MS Student
Dept. of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh.

M. J. Hoque
Associate Professor
Dept. of Agricultural Extension Education, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh.

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

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

The purposes of the study were to determine the response ability of the farmers in a flood prone area and to explore the relationships between the farmers' response ability and their selected characteristics. The study was carried out at Karimpur and Alokbali villages under Sadar upazila of Narsingdi district. Data were collected from a sample of 100 farmers by using interview schedules in October 2010. Farmers' response ability was measured on the basis of their responses to the questions asked. Response ability of the farmers was measured across the seven aspects viz. housing condition, food and drinking water storage and handling, nutrition management, health care and hygiene, crop management, livestock and poultry management, and communication. Response ability in each of the responses was measured firstly and the overall response ability was measured by adding the score of all the responses. Correlation Coefficient (r) was used to explore relationships between the concerned variables. Majority of the farmers (64 percent) had medium response ability while 36 percent had low ability. There was no respondent having high response ability. Response ability of farmers was better in building a makeshift in high platform, protecting house from erosion, using bamboo-made bridge to connect latrine, using oral saline, safeguard, feeding livestock and poultry and keeping boat. But the same was very poor in collecting tube-well water, keeping carbolic acid, collecting locally available varieties of vegetables, taking pre-processed dry food, post flood jute seed sowing, fish culture and creating bamboo-made temporary bridges. Correlation analysis indicated that farmers? education, farm size, organizational exposure, training exposure, extension media contact and knowledge on responses during flood of the farmers had positive significant relationships with their response ability.

Keywords: Farmers’ response, Flood vulnerability, Flood prone area

Location: Karimpur of Karimpur union and Alokbali of Alokbali union in Sadar Upazila under Narsingdi district of Bangladesh

Start Date:

End Date:

Program Area: Risk Management in Agriculture

Non-commodity: Flood

Objectives:

The specific objectives of the study were: (1) to determine the ability of farmers' response to flood vulnerability; (2) to explore the relationships between the selected characteristics of the respondents and their ability to respond during flood; and (3) to explore the problems and their solutions of flood vulnerable farmers and their suggestions to respond during flood.

Methodology:

The study was conducted in two villages namely Karimpur of Karimpur union and Alokbali of Alokbali union in Sadar upazila under Narsingdi district. These villages were situated at the bank of river Meghna. Every year flood occurs in these villages and causes a great deal of human sufferings and damages to crops, livestock, fisheries and other valuable resources. No previous study was conducted in this area on people's responses to flood vulnerability. To bring the area in the light of nations' concern it was selected as the locale of the study. Updated lists of all the farmers of the selected villages were prepared with the help of Sub-Assistant Agriculture Officer (SAAO) and Ward Member. The total number of farmers in the selected villages was 1021, which constituted the population of the study. Around 10% of the farmers from the population were selected as a sample of the study through random sampling method. Moreover, a reserve list of 10 farmers was prepared in case of accidental use. A draft interview schedule was prepared in advance before finally using the same for data collection. The draft schedule was pretested among fifteen farmers from the study area. The pre-test facilitated the researcher to identify faulty questions in the draft schedule and hence necessary corrections and modifications were made in the schedule on the basis of the pre-test results. Farmers? responses was measured by considering seven dimensions, namely housing condition, food and drinking water storage and handling, nutrition management, health care and hygiene, crop management, livestock and poultry management and communication. Ability of farmers' responses of flood vulnerability was measured by checking extent of practices against 20 responses during flood. Extent of practices was measured by a 3- point rating scale such as regularly, occasionally, and not at all and the weightage against the scale were 2, 1, and 0, respectively. Response ability of a respondent to flood vulnerability was computed by adding all scores obtained by him/her in all twenty responses. The scores could range from 0 to 40, where zero indicating the lowest ability of responses, while 40 indicating the highest ability of responses to flood vulnerability. Data were collected during the period from 6 October to 27 October, 2010. At the end of data collection, the collected data were complied with, tabulated and analyzed. The local units were converted into standard units. The qualitative data were transferred into quantitative data by appropriate scoring technique. The responses of the respondents that were recorded in the interview schedule were transferred into a master sheet for entering the data into the computer. The coded data were put into the computer for statistical analysis. The SPSS computer programme was used for analyzing the data. Various descriptive statistical measures such as range, frequency, number, percentage, mean and standard deviation etc. were used for categorization and describing the variables. Pearsons' Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) was used for testing the relationships between the concerned variables.

Source of Information: Bangladesh Journal of Extension Education ISSN 1011-3916 Volume 23, No. 1&2, 2011:115-124

Article Link (Online Journal):

Funding Source:

Budget:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

Most of the farmers in the study area did not have proper response ability and they were vulnerable to flood due to their geographical condition. Socio-economic condition of the char people will not improve if necessary steps were not taken to address the specific aspects of flood vulnerability. It can be concluded that people of the study area were not aware about the insecurity and problem of unavailability and/or collection of preprocessed dry food and sufficient amount of clean and safe drinking water during flood. From the study it is revealed that effectiveness of carbolic acid to avoid snake invation and snake bite was not known to the people still now. In the study area communication facilities and construction of temporary bridges were not develoved due to lake of cooperation and government initiatives. Majority of the people in the study area were not aware about the impact of contaminated water on human health and the way how to purify uncleaned and contaminated water. It can be concluded that farmers' response ability increased with the increase of their education. It is, therefore can be said that proper education will be helpful to improve the response ability of farmers. As extension media is the main source for providing information regarding modern technologies and techniques for proper responses to flood, farmers' response ability cannot be developed without increasing their contact with different extension media.

Knowledge Management: Journal