USE OF ECO-FRIENDLY INDIGENOUS FARM PRACTICES BY THE RDRS FARMERS

Abstract

The major purposes of this study to determine the use of eco-friendly indigenous farm practices by the farmers and to explore the relationship between the selected characteristics of the RDRS farmers with their use of eco-friendly indigenous farm practices. Data were collected using interview schedule from a sample of 120 farmers selected by multistage random sampling procedure from Sadar upazila of Panchagarh and Sadar upazila of Thakurgaon district during 15 July 2016 to 15 August 2016. Besides the usual descriptive statistical parameter, Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) was used for the statistical analysis. Majority (61.7 percent) of the respondents had medium use while 21.7 percent had high use and only 16.7 percent had low use on eco-friendly indigenous farm practices. Laddering/pulling the spinny branch of jujube over the standing wheat crop (local variety) about a month after the seeding is done for profuse tillering’ reached the highest extent of use by the farmers obtaining Indigenous Knowledge Use Index (IKUI) value of 323 as it is one of the main crops in rabi season of the study area. So, if wheat especially local wheat variety is not germinated properly they used the above said technology and got better result. That is why; they identified it as the first ranked technology.. Based on the computed correlation coefficients (r) among the ten selected characteristics of the farmers’, environmental knowledge, agricultural knowledge, communication media exposure and attitude towards RDRS showed significant positive relationship with use of eco-friendly indigenous farm practices. The rest of the characteristics viz. age, educational qualification, family size, farm size, annual income and organizational participation of the farmers did not show any relationship with the use of eco-friendly indigenous farm practices.