ATTITUDE OF FARMERS TOWARDS MAIZE CULTIVATION IN DINAJPUR SADAR UPAZILLA

Abstract

The main purpose of the study was to determine attitude of farmers towards maize cultivation. The study was carried out in Chehelgazi unions of Sadar upazilla under Dinajpur District. Ninety two (92) farmers were selected as sample from an updated list of 920 farmers‟ involved in maize cultivation. Data were collected by a pretested interview schedule during 15 September to 15 October 2017. Simple and direct questions with different scales were used to obtain information. Co-efficient of correlation (r) was computed in order to explore the relationships between the nine selected characteristics of the farmers and their attitude towards maize cultivation. About three-fourths (73.9 percent) of the farmers had highly favorable attitude towards maize cultivation while 26.1 percent moderately favorable attitude and 0.00 percent had slightly favorable attitude towards maize cultivation. Correlation analyses indicated that among nine selected characteristics education, farm size, cosmopoliteness and extension media contact of the farmers had positive significant relationships with their attitude towards maize cultivation. However, age, family size and area under maize cultivation, annual income and training received had no significant relationships with their attitude towards maize cultivation. „Cost of maize cultivation is high than other crops‟ (78.26 percent) emerged as the 1st ranked problem and last ranked (25 percent) perceived problem mentioned by the farmer was „Lack of knowledge on hybrid maize variety‟ expressed by the farmers. The foremost (56.52 percent) suggestion cited by the farmers was „organizing more training program for the farmers‟ and „Application of IPM technique‟ (28.26 percent) was last suggestion.