USE OF PROCESSING AND PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGIES IN CROPS BY THE FARMERS

Abstract

The focus of the present study was to determine the extent of use of processing and preservation technologies in crops by the farmers, to determine and describe the selected characteristics of the farmers, to explore the relationships between the extent of use of preservation technologies by the farmers and to ascertain the problems faced by the farmers in use of processing and preservation technologies and their suggestions to overcome the problems. Data were collected from 91 randomly selected farmers of three selected villages of Chehelgazi union of Sadar upazila under Dinajpur district, during 01 to 30 September 2018. Correlation(s) test was applied to discover the relationship between each of the selected characteristics of the farmers with their use of preservation techniques in agricultural crops production. The highest proportion (60.4 percent) of the farmers had medium use of preservation technologies for crops production while 37.4 percent had high use of preservation technologies for crops production and only 2.2 percent had low use of preservation technologies for crops production. The findings revealed that the majority (about 97.8 percent) of the farmers showed medium to high use of preservation technologies for crops production. Among the nine selected characteristics of the farmers, four (4) namely education, farm size, annual income, training received of the farmers had positive significant relationships with their use of preservation technologies in farming activities. The farmers mentioned seven (7) problems and also five (5) suggestions to overcome those problems. The most important problem faced by the farmers was attack of insects (82.41 percent). Attack of disease was the second (76.72 percent) perceived problems mentioned by the farmers and the suggestions to overcome the problems that the foremost (79.12 percent) suggestion cited by the farmers was used of chemical to protect crops. Arrangement of more training programme was the second most important (76.92 percent) suggestion offered by the farmers. Training programmes are more helpful in enhancing knowledge and use of preservation technologies.