LIVELIHOOD IMPROVEMENT OF THE FARM FAMILIES THROUGH PARTICIPATION IN EKTEE BARI EKTEE KHAMAR PROJECT

Abstract

The study aimed at assessing the livelihood improvement of the Ektee Bari Ektee Khamar (EBEK) project farmers and finding out the relationships between selected characteristics of the farmers and their livelihood improvement. A pre-tested interview schedule was used for collecting data from the farmers of Dinajpur Sadar and Birgonj upazila under Dinajpur district. Data were collected from 115 sample farmers selected by Stratified sampling method procedure from a population of 384 OHOF project farmers from 09 September to 28 October, 2018. Livelihood improvement of the farmers was measured by 5 point rating scale. Among the farmers, 50.4 percent belonged to high status of livelihood improvement while 31.3 percent of them had medium status of livelihood improvement and 18.3 percent had low status of livelihood improvement. The variation regarding different assets of livelihood was minimum, the highest status of livelihood improvement was observed in case of physical capital and it was the lowest in case of financial capital. Six out of ten selected characteristics of the farmers such as age, education, training experience, agricultural knowledge, use of information sources and preference of information sources had significant positive relationships with their livelihood improvement. Based on problem confrontation the first major problem is „lack of quality seeds and seedlings‟ (PCI 237.6), the second major problem is „low training facilities‟ (PCI 215.6) and the third priority problem of the famers is „lack of knowledge on storage, processing and preservation‟ (PCI 186.0). The OHOF project farmers‟ top most three suggested solutions for solving the problems are „necessary credit support should be provided as and when necessary‟, „arrangement of organized marketing system with reasonable price of the produces‟ and „timely and demand led advice by the extension personnel at farmers doorstep‟, respectively.