ATTITUDE OF FARMERS TOWARDS MAIZE CULTIVATION IN NORTHERN REGION OF BANGLADESH

Abstract

The purposes of the study were to determine extent of attitude of farmers towards maize cultivation, to determine the relationships between the selected characteristics of maize growers and their attitude towards maize cultivation, and to identify the problems faced by the maize growers. The study was conducted in two unions namely Paltapur and Nijpara unions of Birganj upazila of Dinajpur district of northern region of Bangladesh. Data were collected from 96 maize growers with a structured interview schedule during 12 March to 10 April 2017 with the assistance of Bangladeshi student who is capable to talk in Bangle and English. The selected 10 characteristics of the maize growers were considered as independent variable and attitude towards maize cultivation was considered as dependent variable. The findings revealed that 64.58 percent of the respondents had moderately favorable attitude towards maize cultivation compared to 18.75 percent had unfavorable and only 16.67 percent had favorable attitude. In contrast to individual statements it is evident that out of twenty statements ‘awareness of farmers regarding identification of quality maize seeds lead to higher production’ has ranked first and ‘maize cultivation need a huge amount of irrigation’ is the least rank. Among the 10 characteristics of the maize growers’ four characteristics namely educational qualification, agricultural knowledge, extension media contact and innovativeness showed positive relationship with their attitude towards maize cultivation on other hand age and farm size showed negative relationship with their attitude towards maize and the rest were failed to show any relationship with the dependent variable. Almost all of the respondents faced similar problems to similar extent. On the other hand, the topmost problem identified by the farmers was ‘nonavailability of seed’ and the last was ‘non availability of storage facility at farmers’.