FARMERS’ INFORMATION NEEDS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE RESILIENCE IN PANCHAGARH DISTRICT

Abstract

The main purpose of the study was to determine farmers’ information needs for climate change resilience. Data were collected from the sample farmers by using a pre-tested interview schedule through personal interview method from Panchagarh sadar upazila under Panchagarh district during 1 February to 31 March 2015. The sample size of the study was 125 farmers and it was drawn from a population of 1250 using simple random sampling technique. A structured interview schedule was prepared for collecting data. Results showed that a vast majority (68.8 percent) of the farmers had medium information needs for climate change resilience, while 16.0 percent had high, 15.2 had low information needs for climate change resilience. The ‘availability of sources of agricultural information’ was the first priority of the farmers for their extent of information needs for climate change resilience followed by ‘changing cultivation practices’. After that ‘prevention and care of heat stress from extreme high temperature’ was mentioned by the farmers as third important agricultural information needs for climate change resilience and lowest needs of information was observed on ‘means of recharge and preserve aquifers’ among the selected agricultural information needs items. Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) analyses showed that farmer’s age, farming experience, level of education, annual family income, farm size, knowledge on climate change, perception regarding climate change, adaptation strategies for climate change resilience and problems faced by the farmers due to change of climate showed positive relationship with the information needs of the farmers.