ADOPTION OF SELECTED CONSERVATIVE AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES BY THE FARMERS

Abstract

Abstract The main purpose of this study was to determine the extent of adoption of selected conservative agricultural practices by the farmers and to explore the relationship of the selected characteristics of the farmers with their adoption of selected conservative agricultural practices. The selected characteristics were age, level of education, working family size, effective land possession, cropping intensity, annual family income, marketing opportunity, cosmopoliteness, extension contact, training exposure, decision making ability, conservative agricultural knowledge, problems faced in conservative agriculture and attitude towards conservative agriculture. Data were gathered from 88 farmers of two unions Lebukhali and Pangashia unions of Dumki upazila under Patuakhali district by using personal interview schedule during the period from 6th October to 5 th November, 2019. Sample Size Calculator developed by Creative Research System (1980) Formula was used and proportionate random technique was used to select the sample from each of the unions. Pearson’s Product Moment Co-efficient of Correlation was used to examine the relationship of the selected characteristics of the farmers with their adoption of selected conservative agricultural practices. The findings revealed that 69.3 percent of the respondents had medium adoption , while 19.3 percent had high adoption and the rest 11.4 percent had low adoption of selected conservative agricultural practices. Correlation indicated that among the fourteen selected experimental variables, marketing opportunity, cosmopoliteness, extension contact, training exposure, decision making ability, conservative agricultural knowledge and attitude towards conservative agriculture had significant and positive relationship with their adoption of conservative agricultural practices where problems faced in conservative agriculture had shown significant negative relationship with adoption. The rest of the variables did not show any significant relationship with their adoption of conservative agricultural practices. Farmers faced higher problems in “lack of farm animal” followed by “uncertaint y of pest control in case of severe attack”. Key words: Conservative agriculture, adoption, conservative agricultural practices