FARMERS’ PERCEIVED LIVELIHOOD IMPROVEMENT THROUGH PARTICIPATION IN NATP-2 PROJECT

Abstract

Abstract The study aimed at assessing the livelihood improvement of the National Agricultural Technology Program (NATP) phase-2 project as perceived by participant farmers and finding out the contribution of the selected characteristics of the farmers to their perceived livelihood improvement through participation in NATP-2 project. A pretested

interview schedule was used for collecting data from the farmers of Saidpur and Khongoan union of Pirgonj upazila under Thakurgoan district. Out of 420 farmers, 111 farmers were randomly selected and interviewed from 10 October to 10 November, 2019. Perceived livelihood improvement of the farmers was measured by 5- point rating scale. Among the farmers, half of the respondents (50.4 percent) belonged to high status of livelihood improvement while 31.3 percent of them had medium and 18.3 percent had low status of livelihood improvement respectively. 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 natural capital. Three out of nine selected characteristics of the farmers such as farm size, use of technology and extension media contact had significant positive relationships with their perceived livelihood improvement while the rest of the variables showed no significant contribution. All the factors jointly contribute 37.0% of the variance of perceived livelihood improvement (R 2 = .370). Age, education qualification, family size, annual income, farming experience, training experience had no significant contribution. To summarize, this study offered several practical and theoretical recommendations about farmers’ perceived livelihood improvement through NATP-2 project.