FARMERS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE USE OF DOLOCHUN FOR CROP PRODUCTION

Abstract

The main focus of the present study was to investigate the attitude of the farmers towards the use of dolochun for crop production, to explore relationship between the selected characteristics of the respondents and their attitude towards dolochun and also to identify constraints faced by the farmers in adopting dolochun. The study was conducted in three unions under Domar upazila in Nilphamari district. Data were collected from randomly selected 104 farmers, (34 percent of the population of 310). The attitude of the farmers towards the use of dolochun for crop production was examined with 5-point rating scale. Karl Pearson’s Product Moment correlation coefficient (r) was computed to explore the relationships between dependent and independent variables. Nine selected characteristics (i.e. age, educational qualification, family size, farm size, annual family income, training exposure, organizational participation, extension media contact and agricultural knowledge) of the farmers constituted the independent variables where farmers’ attitude towards the use of dolochun for crop production was the dependent variable of the study. The findings revealed that the majority of the farmers (58.7 percent) had ‘moderately favorable’ attitude towards dolochun while 22.1 percent and 19.2 percent had ‘highly favorable’ and ‘slightly favorable’, attitude towards the use of dolochun for crop production, respectively. Correlation analysis showed that the ‘educational qualification’, ‘training exposure’, ‘organizational participation’, ‘extension media contact’ and ‘agricultural knowledge’ had positive significant relationship with their attitude towards the use of dolochun for crop production, while the ‘age’ and ‘family size’ of the respondent had negative significant relationships with their attitude towards dolochun to reduce soil acidity and increase crop production. The major constraints faced by the farmers in adopting dolochun were ‘unavailability of dolochun in pick period’, ‘lack of knowledge about dolochun’, ‘ignorance of farmers about the advantage of dolochun’ and ‘lack of training on dolochun application’.