ASSESSING FARMERS’ KNOWLEDGE ON FOOD SAFETY

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to determine the farmer‟s knowledge on food safety and explore the relationship of the selected characteristics of the growers on their knowledge on food safety. The selected characteristics were age, education, family size, farm size, annual family income, training exposure, extension contact, innovativeness and cosmopoliteness. Data were gathered from proportionally and randomly selected 110 respondents (farmers) of two villages of Kadir para union of Shreepur upazila under Magura district by using a pretested interview schedule during the period of 1 st September to 30 October, 2018. Apart from descriptive statistical methods, Pearson's Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient analysis was used in order to analyze the data. Findings indicated that the majority (59.09%) of the respondents had medium knowledge on food safety, 32.91% had high knowledge on food safety and 8% had low knowledge on food safety. Out of nine selected characteristics of the respondents, education, farm size, extension contact and innovativeness had positive significant relationship with their knowledge on food safety. The rest of the variables namely: age, family size, annual family income, training exposure and cosmopoliteness did not show any significant relationships with their knowledge on food safety.