KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE OF THE FARMERS TOWARDS TOBACCO CULTIVATION IN SELECTED AREA OF RANGPUR DISTRICT

Abstract

The specific purpose of this research was to determine farmers’ knowledge and attitude towards tobacco cultivation and also to explore the relationships between each of nine selected characteristics of the farmers and their knowledge and attitude towards tobacco cultivation. The study was conducted in 2 villages of Badarganj upazila under Rangpur district. The populations of tobacco farmers in two villages were 364, from which a sample of 109 (30% of population) farmers were drawn by using random sampling technique. An interview schedule was used for data collection. The data were collected during January 16 to February 4, 2018. Majority (94.5%) of the farmers possessed high knowledge and 5.5 and 32.1 percent of the farmers possessed low and medium knowledge on tobacco cultivation respectively. Regarding attitude, it was found that about 49.54% of the respondents had favorable attitude, 11.92% of the respondents had unfavorable attitude and 38.53% of the respondents had neutral attitude towards tobacco cultivation. Level of education, farm size and extension contact of the tobacco farmers had significant positive relationship and problem faced by the tobacco farmer had negative significant relationship with their knowledge on tobacco cultivation, while age, annual income, income from tobacco, organizational participation, cosmopoliteness had no significant relationship with their knowledge on tobacco cultivation. Again level of education, farm size, annual income, and income from tobacco, organization participation, cosmopolitenesss and extension contact of the farmers had significant positive relationship with their attitude towards tobacco cultivation, while age and problem faced by tobacco farmers had no significant relationship with their attitude towards tobacco cultivation.