The study was conducted following “descriptive and diagnostic” research design at three unions of Magura Sadar upazila under Magura district. The researcher deliberately selected three unions from the upazila, namely Hazrapur, Hazipur and Atharokhada. The selected areas are much improved in organic farming. An up-to date list of the farmers being involved in organic farming were considered as the population for this study which was prepared with the help of the concerned Sub Assistant Agricultural Officers (SAAOs) of the concerned unions. The list comprised of a total number of 202 farm families. Among them, 30 percent was selected following simple random sampling technique. Thus the sample size so drawn stood as 61. An interview schedule was prepared for collecting valid and reliable data according to the objectives of the study. The researcher collected data from the farmers through face to face interview during January 5 to March 20, 2018. The selected characteristics of the respondents performing organic farming were (A) personal: (1) age, (2) education, (3) family size, (4) experiences in farming, (5) experiences in organic farming, and (6) organic farming knowledge; (B) economical: (7) farm size, and (8) annual family income; (C) social: (9) organizational participation, (10) cosmopolitans, (11) extension media contact, and (12) training exposure in organic farming. All selected characteristics were measured following standard procedure and then categorized and arranged in simple tables for interpretation and discussion. Number, frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and range were used for statistical description. Spearman’s Rank Order Correlation “ρ” was used to ascertain the relationship between selected characteristics of the respondents and problem confrontation. Throughout the study, at least fivepercent (0.05) level of probability was used.
The problem confrontation score was computed for each respondent. For this purpose, each respondent was asked to indicate his problems on selected six broad areas related to organic farming such as (A) manures and fertilizers, (B) agricultural credit, (C) marketing facilities, (D) adoption of organic farming, (E) land, and (F) production. As a whole 24 problems were incorporated in the interview schedule. The extent of the problem confrontation was rated as “highly severe”, “moderately severe”, “less severe” and “not at all” and weights of the rating scale were assigned as 3, 2, 1 and 0, respectively (Pervin et al., 2018). The problem confrontation score of a respondent was determined by summing the scores of all the problems. Thus, the score could range from 0 to 72, where 0 indicated absence of problem and 72 indicated the highest magnitude of problem for each individual respondent. The severity of a problem was determined based on Problem Confrontation Index (PCI). The PCI was determined by using the following formula
PCI = N1×3+N2×2+N3×1+N4×0
Where, N1 =Number of respondents confronted the problems and rated as highly severe. N2 = Number of respondents confronted the problems and rated as moderately severe N3= Number of respondents confronted the problems and rated as less severe N4= Number of respondents did not confronted the problem at all.
The computed PCI could range from 0 to 183, where 0 indicated “it’s not a problem” and 183 indicated “this is the highest confronted problem”. After determination of PCI, the severity of the problem was determined by following formula:
Severity of the Problem = Observed Problems Confrontation Score / Possible Problems Confrontation Score x 100