COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT DATE PALM BASED AGROFORESTRY SYSTEMS AT RAJOIR UPAZILLA OF MADARIPUR DISTRICT

Abstract

Date palm tree is an important component of Agroforestry system in our country. Date palm based Agroforestry system practiced by the farmer’s of the Rajoir upazilla of Madaripur district were surveyed to identify and characterize the different types of Date palm based Agroforestry systems and to evaluate the economic potential as well as economic impact of these systems and to find the most suitable Date palm based Agroforestry system in this area. For these purpose four unions and 80 respondents were selected from the Rajoir upazilla of Madaripur district. Data were collected from December 2018 to January 2020 following purposive random sampling technique and analysis was done by SPSS 10 software. From the study area 6 types of Date palm based Agroforestry system were identified and among these systems the highest net return (78170 Tk./ha) can be obtained from the Date palm-jute based Agroforestry system but the highest (1.97) benefit cost ratio can be obtained from the Date palm-mustard based Agroforestry system as the production cost of mustard is lower in proportion to the jute. So, in this region Date palm-mustard based Agroforestry system is the most suitable Agroforestry system. The farmers of Rajoir upazila of Madaripur district were practicing Date palm based Agroforestry system 76.85% of their total cultivated land and were getting 77.21% cash of their total income. The relationship between the selected characteristics of the respondent farmer with their income from Date palm based Agroforestry system was found highly significant and positive. Planned cultivation procedure and technical support from extension personnel can make this system more profitable.