EFFECTIVENESS OF UNION DIGITAL CENTER IN UTILIZATION OF AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION

Abstract

Union Digital Center is being an important element of agricultural development in the 21 century. The objective of the study were to determine the effectiveness of Union Digital Center (UDC) in utilization of agricultural information by the farmers, to determine the contribution of the selected characteristics of the farmers to the effectiveness of UDC in utilization of agricultural information by the farmers and to know the problems faced by the farmers in receiving agricultural information from the UDC. Data were collected using interview schedule from a sample of 154 farmers out of 200 farmers from 8 villages of Alokjhari union of Khansama upazila under Dinajpur district who are the member of Common Interest Group (CIG) by simple random sampling procedure during 13 January to 15 February, 2016. Descriptive statistics and stepwise multiple regression were used for analysis. The effectiveness of UDC was determined on 10 selected agricultural information based on three dimensions viz. information receive, understanding and application. In terms of effectiveness the highest effective information was found on ‘compost preparation’ (EUDCI=166.94) followed by ‘tree plantation’ (EUDCI=161.26), ‘recommended seed rate’ (EUDCI=156.91), ‘recommended varieties’ (EUDCI=155.24) and so on. The lowest effective information was ‘fruits processing techniques’ (EUDCI=84.98) among the selected agricultural information. The highest proportion (49.4 percent) of the farmers had low effectiveness of UDC in utilization of agricultural information compared to 30.5 percent had medium effectiveness and 20.1 percent had high effectiveness. Among the influential variables level of education, family income, innovativeness, agricultural knowledge and aspiration were provided 53.1 percent contribution on the effectiveness of UDC. Among ten selected constraints faced by the farmers ‘shortage of employee in Union Digital Center’ (70.62 percent) ranked first and lowest one was ‘Negative attitude and obstacles from local leaders’ (27.25 percent). So, the findings indicate that UDC plays a moderate role in utilization of agricultural information. Agricultural knowledge was the main contributor to the improvement of effectiveness of UDC. The study findings recommend that DAE should take necessary steps for the improvement of farmers agricultural knowledge offering need based training and strengthening farmers through FFSs, IPM clubs etc.