TRAIMNC NEEDS OF THE FARMERS ON INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT (IPM) PRACTICES

Abstract

he main objective of this study was to find out the extent of training needs on Integrated Pest Management (1PM) practices by the farmers and to determine the relationship between the selected characteristics of the farmers and their training of 1PM practices. The study was conducted in Rampal Upazila under Bagerhat district. One hundred farmers were selected randomly as the respondents of the study randomly out of 500 farmers. Data collected from the respondents using an interview schedule during 3 February to 6th March 2010. Descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, range and percentage were used to describe the variables under consideration. Pearson's Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) was used to explore the relationship between the selected characteristics of the farmers and their training needs of 1PM practices. The data revealed that only 62 percent of the farmers were medium user of 1PM training while 25 percent low and 13 percent of the respondents were high to use 1PM practices. In the study group nearly 60 percent farmers were middle aged (41-50 yrs). Majority of the farmers 83 percent had secondary level of education compared to other categories. About 71 percent respondents had medium size family (5-6) members. The findings also revealed that training of 1PM practices by the farmers had no significant relationship with their education, farm size, family size, annual family income, extension media contact, while cosmopoliteness had positive significant relationship. In respect of problems confrontation, the findings revealed that the majority (62 percent) of the farmers faced medium confrontation while 18 percent faced high and 20 percent faced low problems confrontation during training of 1PM practices. Among the ten selected problems, "lack of quality seed" ranked first in order while "criticize to other farmers for training of 1PM practices" ranked least.