ADOPTION OF INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT (IPM) PRACTICES BY THE VEGETABLE GROWERS OF MAGURA DISTRICT

Abstract

The main objectives of this study was to find out the extent of adoption of Integrated Pest \1anagement (IPM) practices by the vegetable growers and to explore the relationships between the selected characteristics of the vegetable growers and their adoption of IPM practices. The study was conducted in two Unions under Sreepur upazila of Magura district. A list of 125 vegetable growers of Farmers' Field School (FFS) was collected from Upazila Agriculture Office. Out of 125 vegetable growers, 100 vegetable growers were randomly selected by taking 20 from each of 5 FFSs for the sample of the study. Data were collected from the respondents using an interview schedule during the whole month of June 2005. Descriptive statistics, such as mean, standard deviation, range and percentage were used to describe the variables under consideration. Spearmari's correlation coefficient (r) was used to explore the relationship between the selected characteristics of the vegetable growers and their adoption of lPM practices. The data showed that only 32 percent of the vegetable growers were high user of IPM practices, while 63 percent medium and 5 percent of the vegetable growers were low user of IPM practices respectively. According to the land use for IPM practices only 20 percent of the vegetable growers were high user of land and 45 percent and 35 percent of the vegetable growers are medium and low user of land for IPM practices respectively. Among the ten selected practices "Weed management" ranked first followed by use of healthy seeds, perching in the crop field, use of light trap, practice of crop rotation, indigenous methods, hand sweep, use of pesticides, collection and destroy eggs and larvae, and "cultivation of resistant variety" ranked last. The findings also revealed that adoption of IPM practices by the vegetable growers had significant positive correlation with their level of education, family size, farm size, annual income, organizational participation, extension media contact, innovativeness, knowledge on IPM and cosmopoliteness while only age of the vegetable growers had no significant relationship with their adoption of IPM practices.