USE OF IMPROVED WHEAT CULTIVATION PRACTICES BY THE FARMERS

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the extent of use of improved wheat cultivation practices by the farmers, and to explore the relationships between farmers’ characterist ics and their use of improved practices. Chhaporhati and Shantiram union under Sundargonj upazila of Gaibandha district was the locale of the study. Data were collected by using face to face interview from randomly selected 95 farmers during April 25 to June 2, 2017. The finding reveales that more than half (58.9%) of the growers had medium use of improved practice, 24.2 percent had low use and 16.8 percent had high use of improved wheat cultivation practices. Computed ‘r’ values indicate that selected characterist ics of the farmers, namely, education, farm size, area under wheat cultivation, experience in wheat cultivations, annual family income, income from wheat cultivation and extension contact had significant positive relationship with the use of improved wheat cultivation practices. Age, family size and experience in agriculture had no significant relationships with the use of improved wheat cultivation practices. More than half (77.9 percent) of the growers faced medium problems compared to 11.6 and 10.5 percent faced low and high problem respectively regarding wheat cultivation. Five major problems in descending order of Problem Confrontation Index were: Lack of technical information, Low market price, High production cost, Lack of proper communication and marketing facilities, Unavailability of farm input like seeds, fertilizer, pesticide, etc.