Farmers’ Use of Improved Practices in Potato Cultivation

Abstract

The main purpose of the study was to determine the extent of use of the improved practices by the farmers in potato cultivation, and to explore the relationships between selected characteristics of the farmers and their use of improved practices. The study was carried out in Nandigram Upazila of Bogura District of Bangladesh. Data are collected via face-to-face interview from 94 randomly selected farmers by using structured interview schedule. Descriptive statistics was used for measuring the frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. Pearson’s product moment correlation co-efficient(r) was performed to determine the relationships between the selected characteristics and use of improved practices. Findings indicated that majority (70.2%) of the farmers had medium use of improve practices compared to 16.0% low and 13.8% had high use of improve practices. Among the selected characteristics; education, farm size, organizational participation and extension media contact had positive significant relationship with their use of improved practices in potato cultivation, while age showed the negative significant relationship. Hence, use of improved practices in potato cultivation was significantly affected by these significant characteristics. According to Use Index (UI), ‘ridge and furrow method’ and ‘ploughing with power tiller’ were the first ranked improved practices used by the farmers in potato cultivation having similar use index. On the other hand, the bottom ranked improved practices in the potato cultivation was ‘vermicomposting’. Further research on attitude and perception of the farmers towards improved practices in potato cultivation might be considered in same or other location of the country.