IMPACT OF RICE MILL POLLUTION ON THEIR SURROUNDING ENVIRONMENT: A CASE STUDY IN DINAJPUR SADAR UPAZILA

Abstract

A study was conducted to find out the impact of rice mill pollution on the surrounding environment, agricultural production and human health status at Dinajpur Sadar Upazila through a semi-structured questionnaire during the period from October 2018 to October 2019. Nine rice mills were randomly selected and data were collected from a number of 104 respondents. Data were collected from the respondents at four distant places away from a rice mill viz. 0 meter (in and around mill area), 100, 500, and 1000 meter away. Appropriate scales were developed to measure both the independent and dependent variables. The independent variables were respondents‟ age, gender, education level, family size, farm size, annual income, organizational participation, knowledge on rice mill, and their attitude towards rice mill. Again, the dependable variables were respondents‟ perceptions about the impact of rice mill on the environment, agricultural production, and respondents‟ health. The survey revealed that out of three age group, maximum respondents were old aged (51.92%), out of five education levels, the highest category of education was secondary level (52.88%) and out of the three family categories, the highest family size was medium (78.85%). In case of gender study, 81.73% of respondents were male and the rest were female because of the reserve social culture. Farm size of the respondents showed that maximum people (40.38%) had small farm size (0.5 to 1.4 ha). The income of the maximum respondents (30.77%) was in the high category with a mean of 56.23 thousand per year. Study on knowledge showed that maximum people (58.65%) had moderate knowledge (Score:10-15) with an average score of 12.92 out of 20 inrespect of rice mill pollution. The maximum respondents attitude (>50%) towards the impact of rice mill pollution on envielnment, agricultute and their health status were not positive (score was 8-15 out of 32) i.e. they were suffering from the rice mill pollutions. Study on four different distances showed that the closest surroundings were highly affected category (impact score >40 out of 60) by the rice mill pollution. The pollution effect on agricultural productivity and human health was in the highest category up to 500 meter away from the mill site and it was found in decreasing trend (impact score <20) at the distance of 1000 away from the rice mill. The overall findings of the study suggested that rice mill should be established more than half a kilometer away from the human settlement and arable land to minimize the mill pollution hazards.