farmers' attitude towards sustainable agricultural practices

BANGLADESH RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS JOURNALISSN: 1998-2003, Volume: 8, Issue: 4, Page: 227-234, July - August, 2013Review PaperFARMERS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURALPRACTICESMithun Kumar Ghosh 1 and Shaikh Shamim Hasan* 2Mithun Kumar Ghosh and Shaikh Shamim Hasan (2013). Farmers’ Attitude towards SustainableAgricultural Practices. Bangladesh Res. Pub. J. 8(4): 227-234. Retrieve fromhttp://www.bdresearchpublications.com/admin/journal/upload/1308408/1308408.pdfAbstractThe main purpose of this study was to determine attitude of the farmers towardssustainable agriculture. The study was conducted in two villages (Tejrol andRajapur) of two different unions of Sadar Upazila of Jessore district. Ninetyrespondents were selected following two-stage proportionate random samplingtechnique during January to March, 2012. Compilation and interpretation weredone as per objectives of the study. Findings indicated that majority of therespondents (48.9%) were young aged, had primary level of education (34.4%),had small farm size (85.5%) and large family size (51.1%). The respondents had lowextension contact (82.2%), medium farming experience (45.6%) and they had lowcosmopoliteness (45.6%). It was also found that majority of the respondents (51.1%)had low knowledge. They showed medium attitude (65.6%) towards sustainableagricultural practices. Moreover, level of education, farm size, annual income,cosmopoliteness, extension contact and knowledge had positive and significantrelationship with the attitude of the farmers towards sustainable agriculture. Theresults of the study showed that the higher the socioeconomic status (morefrequent contact with extension services, higher education, ownership of land, etc.)and the greater the access to information, the greater the perceived importanceof sustainable agricultural practices. It is concluded that if policy-makers andextension organizations concentrate on these factors, they are more likely tosucceed in making farmers more favorably disposed toward sustainableagriculture.Key words: Attitude, Sustainable Agriculture.IntroductionBangladesh has an agrarian economy. Agriculture is the single largest producing sector ofthe economy since it comprises about 20% of the country's GDP and employs around48.4% of the total labor force (Annon, 2013). The performance of this sector has anoverwhelming impact on major macroeconomic objectives like employment generation,poverty alleviation, human resources development and food security as well. It isestimated that the total land area of Bangladesh is about 14.4 million ha, of which about66.6% is arable that are divided into 30 AEZ and 88 sub-regions based on physicalenvironment (Annon, 2009). That arable land is being fragmented into small piecesbecause of the large number of farm holdings. As the population increases over time, itdemands for a change about the cultivation systems of agriculture. In this regards,cropping intensification were adopted to meet up the challenge of the food demand of21 st century. But in turn, it renders manifold problem on agriculture and environment.However, experts are concerned about the food production and its security for theincreased population.*Corresponding Author: E-mail: shinuextn120@yahoo.com1. MS Student Department of Agricultural Exttension and Rural Development, Bangabandhu SheikhMujibur Rahman Agricultural University (BSMRAU), Gazipur - 1706, Bangladesh.2. Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Exttension and Rural Development, BangabandhuSheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University (BSMRAU), Gazipur – 1706.

Ghosh and Hasan.The application of modern agricultural science and technology has contributed toincrease productivity of agriculture in the last half-century. The successes of agriculture,however, have been accompanied by many ecological problems. Today, both rural andurban inhabitants feel threatened by dangers posed to the environment by modernagricultural practices such as the heavy use of chemicals. An alternative farming strategycalled sustainable agriculture promises remedies to the problems created by industrializedchemical based agriculture, if sustainable agriculture can be shown to be viable andbecome widely accepted (Roling and Wagemakers, 2002).Currently, the world shows extensive worries on the destructive effects of advancedagricultural technologies on the environment, natural resources and long termsustainability of agronomy systems. Soil degradation, erosion, water pollution, excessiveuse of chemicals, waste of water, decreasing ground water tables, destruction of naturalhabitats for wildlife and insects and pests resistance against insecticide and pesticide areonly a few of the concerns expressed by environmentalists, ecologists, agriculturalprofessionals, policy makers, farmers and public (Leeuwis, 2004; Al-Subaiee et al., 2005).Despite these environmental effects at many places, the modern agriculture has beeninvolved in many economic and social changes both in the industrial and developingcountries. Sustainable agriculture, as a managerial philosophy and a system that providesagricultural needs of both present and future generations has raised as a major challengeof the 21 st century to meet these complications and natural and human difficulties; that is,agriculture should be consume less and be sustainable more (Williams, 2000; Qamar, 2002;Rasul and Thapa, 2003; Shariate and Hosseyni, 2003; Leeuwis, 2004; Shahvali and Abedi,2005; Ahmadvand et al., 2005).Sustainable agriculture’ as “farming that makes the best use of natural goods and serviceswhile not damaging the environment. It minimizes the use of no renewable inputs(pesticides and fertilizers) that damage the environment or harm the health of farmersand consumers. In addition, it makes better use of the knowledge and skills of farmers”(Duesterhaus, 1990).The concept of sustainable agricultural practices is of concern forfarmers, extension agents, agricultural education teachers, and others working inagricultural related occupations. Sustainability requires a holistic approach in order tounderstand the whole as an aggregation of interwoven parts working together (Hartfieldand Karlen, 2001). The performance of sustainable agricultural practices is judged not interms of how each practice works separately, but in terms of how the individual practicesfit together and relate to each other, and how the systems that result relate to theirenvironment and to other systems in the environment (Roling and Wagemakers, 2002). Theultimate goal or the ends of sustainable agriculture is to develop farming systems that areproductive and profitable, conserve the natural resource base, protect the environment,and enhance health and safety, and to do so over the long-term. Considering the abovementioned facts, the study was undertaken with the following objectives:1. To determine the selected socio-demographic characteristics of farmers;2. To determine the attitude of farmers towards sustainable agriculture;3. To explore the relationship between selected characteristics of the farmers andtheir attitude towards sustainable agriculture.MethodologyLebutala and Ichali union of Jessore Sadar upazila of Jessore district were selected as thelocale of the study. All farmers of Tejrol village of Lebutala union and Rajapur village ofIchali union were the population of the study. At first two villages, Tejrol and Rajapur wereselected randomly from two unions. Total number of farm families in Tejrol and Rajapurwere 334 and 267 respectively. 50 farmers from Tejrol village and 40 farmers from Rajapurvillage were selected as sample following two-stage proportionate random samplingtechnique. Thus the total number of sample respondents was 90. Face to faceinterviewing by using structured interview schedule was used to collect data and theentire process of data collection were done from February to March, 2012.Measurement of dependent variableFarmers’ attitude towards sustainable agricultural practices was considered as thedependent variable of this study. Farmer’s attitude was measured by asking his opinion228http://www.bdresearchpublications.com/journal/

Sustainable Agricultural Practicesupon 25 attitudinal statements on sustainable agricultural practices. 5-point Likert typescale was used for this purpose. Score 5 was assigned to strongly agree statements, while4, 3, 2 and 1 was assigned for agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree statementsrespectively. In case of negative attitudinal statement, reverse score was assigned toeach response. Based on the computed scores the respondents were classified into threecategories according to Salawat et al., 2013, i.e., low attitude (up to 82 scores), mediumattitude (83 to 106 scores) and high attitude (above 106 scores).Measurement of independent variablesThe independent variables of this study were farmer’s age, education, family size, farmsize, annual income, farming experience, cosmopoliteness, extension contact, andknowledge. Age of a farmer was measured on the basis of actual age of his life andexpressed in years. The education was measured by the number of years of schooling.Family size was measured by the total number of members including the farmer himself,spouse, children and other permanent dependents who lived together as a family unit.The total land area possessed by the farmer under farm and homestead was the basis ofmeasuring farm size in this study and it was expressed in acre. The yearly income of thefarmer from different sources was the annual income of the respondent. Farmingexperience was determined by the duration of experience of a farmer in agriculturalworks and expressed in years. Farmer’s visit to different places outside of his own villagewas the basis of cosmopoliteness score measurement. For measuring extension contact ofthe farmer, a four-point scale i.e, not at all, rarely, occasionally and frequently was usedand appropriate weights were assigned to quantify the variable. Twenty one questionswere selected in the interview schedule for measuring farmers’ knowledge on sustainableagricultural practices. The score assigned against each item was 2 for fully correct answer,1 for partial correct answer and 0 for incorrect answer. Weight for responses on the 21questions of a farmer were added together to get his score for on sustainable agriculturalpractices.Necessary tables and categories were used to classify the data considering their natureand distribution. As per the objective of the study, statistical tests like frequency counts,percentage, mean, standard deviation were used for analysis and interpretation of data.Correlation coefficients were used for hypothesis testing and 0.05 and 0.01 levelprobabilities were used as the basis for exploring relationship between the concernedvariables throughout the study.Results and DiscussionSelected characteristics of the respondentsData displayed in the Table 1 indicated that the young aged constituted the highestproportion (48.9.%) of the respondent followed by middle and old aged category with anaverage of 38.92 years. 34.44% of the respondents got primary level education which wasthe highest followed by Secondary level, no education and Tertiary level education. Thelargest farm size was 5.26 acre with an average of 1.18 acre. The highest proportion(85.56%) of the farmer had small farm size followed by medium and large farm sizerespectively. The number of family members of the farmers ranged from 2 to 10 with anaverage was 5.76. The income of the farmers ranged from Tk. 30000 to Tk. 110000, theaverage was Tk. 55777.78. Farming experience scores of the farmers could range from 5 to45 years, with an average was 20.92 years. The highest proportion (45.6%) of the farmer fellin medium experience category followed by high experience and low experience. Themaximum (45.6%) of the farmers had low cosmopoliteness followed by high mediumcosmopoliteness. Most of the respondents had low extension contact (82.2%) followed bymedium and high extension contact. Knowledge scores on sustainable agriculturalpractices of the farmers ranged from 8 to 41, with an average was 20.1. The highestproportion (51.1%) of the farmers fell in low knowledge category compared to mediumand in high knowledge category.229http://www.bdresearchpublications.com/journal/

Ghosh and Hasan.Table 1. Categories of the selected characteristics of the farmersCharacteristics Categories Farmers (%) Observed score Mean SDAge Young 48.9Middle 33.3 22 to 65 years 38.92 11.72Old 17.8Education No education 24.4Primary level education 34.4 0 to 12 5.02 4.39Secondary level education 26.6Tertiary level education 14.4Farm size Small 85.5Medium 14.4 0 to 5.26 acre 1.18 1.25Large 0Family size 1 member 02-3 member 10 2 to 10 5.76 1.814-5 member 38.96+ member 51.1Annual income Up to 40000 tk 37.840001tk to 60000tk 35.6 30000 to 110000 tk. 55777.78 2905.66More than 60000 26.6Farming Low experience 18.9experience Medium experience 45.6 5 to 45 20.92 10.88High experience 35.5Cosmopoliteness Low 45.6Medium 20.0 1 to 40 10.68 8.36High 34.4Extension Low contact 82.2contact Medium contact 15.6 1 to 24 8.74 6.38High contact 2.2Knowledge Low 51.1Medium 34.4 8 to 41 21.1 8.20High 14.5230Attitude towards sustainable agricultural practicesData contained in Table 2 indicated that the farmers had top most attitude on thesustainable agriculture practices in respect of ‘Application of cowdung and compostincrease soil fertility’ was the highest (SPI=423) followed by ‘Technology should be used asbest as possible to increase efficiency of agricultural production’ (SPI=418). Then‘Manuring improve water conservation in the soil’ (SPI=416) was in third position. ‘Over useof chemical fertilizers is responsible for lower soil fertility’ (SPI=414) was in fourth. From thefirst four statements it can be said that most of the respondents of the study area wereagreed to the use of compost and green manure in their field replacing chemicalfertilizer. They also mentioned that chemical fertilizer is harmful for soil. From some otherstatements it can be said that the respondents were agreed to the importance ofsustainable agriculture to the environment, use of crop rotation, long term productivity.http://www.bdresearchpublications.com/journal/

Sustainable Agricultural PracticesTable 2. Rank order of the statements according to their attitude indexSl.StatementsNo.SA A U DA SDA SPI Rank1. Application of cowdung and compost263increase soil fertility. (+)7423 12. Technology should be used as best as2possible to increase efficiency of agricultural 632production. (+)5 418 23. Manuring improve water conservation in the 65 1 9 416 34. soil. Over (+) use of chemical fertilizers is responsible 6163for lower soil fertility. (+)89 414 45. The successful farmer is who earns enough1 1from farming to enjoy a good standard of 636 1living. (+)412 56. Sustainable agriculture practices are useful 1 161to protect the environment. (+)8 1410 67. Crop rotation improves soil texture. (+) 63 1 1410 78. Sustainability should consider only at farm 63 49 31405 89. level.(-) Sustainable agriculture practices are2 8149beneficial to agriculture. (+)5 6393 910. Environmental problem may hinder45 2 1387 1011. productivity. Farmers should (+) be informed to use738136sustainable agricultural practices.(+)4 64 372 1112. Sustainable agriculture is useful to maintain 1 343long-term productivity of farming system.(+) 6 1372 1213. Without use of chemical agriculture is not 54 7 1 11 4 366 1314. possible.(-)Sustainable agriculture requires less amount 5 4118of chemical fertilizer. (+)9 3365 1415. Soil and water are the sources of all life and 4 222should therefore be strictly conserved. (+)1 7355 1516. Chemical herbicides are more suitable to 41 9 2 7 10 334 16control weed. (-)317. Modern agriculture is a major cause of3 3ecological problems and must be greatly 164 4 320 170 6modified to become ecologically sound. (+)18. Planting more trees is an indicator ofSustainable agriculture. (+)19. It is not necessary to use composting sincefarmers still use fertilizers to replenish the soil.(-)20. The best way to control and reducedamage of farm pests and weed is21. biological Sustainable control. agriculture (+) practices are noteasy to apply. (-)22. I am not clear which agriculture practicesare sustainable. (-)http://www.bdresearchpublications.com/journal/73227 95123316 1820 11 291 191 31314 11 274 204 8123 4 25 25 245 21352 4 23 9 237 22223. Sustainable agriculture can be applied only42 2 22 21 212 23on small family farms. (-)324. Sustainable agriculture is not economically9 4 45 32 170 24profitable. (-)23 54 139 25Index: SA=Strongly Agree, A=Agree, U=Undecided, DA=Disagree, SDA=Strongly Disagree25. Crop rotation requires more labor than other1agricultural practices. (-)3The respondents showed negative attitude to some statements. ‘Sustainable agriculturepractices are not easy to apply’ (SPI=245) was in 21 st , ‘I am not clear which agriculturepractices are sustainable’ (SPI=237) was in 22 nd , ‘Sustainable agriculture can be appliedonly on small family farms’ (SPI=212) was in 23 rd , ‘Sustainable agriculture is not231

Ghosh and Hasan.economically profitable’ (SPI=170) was in 24 th and ‘Crop rotation requires more laborthan other agricultural practices’ (SPI=139) was in 25 th . From the above statements it canbe said that sustainable agriculture was clear to most of the respondents and they opinedthat it is easy to apply, economically profitable, no need of extra labor.Based on the computed scores the respondents were classified into three categories i.e.,low attitude (up to 82 scores), medium attitude (83 to 106 scores) and high attitude(above 106 scores).From Figure 1 it is clear that majority (65.6%) of the respondents had medium attitudetowards sustainable agriculture followed by 21.1% low and 13.3% high attituderespectively.232Figure 1: Distribution of the farmers according to their attitude towards sustainableagricultural practicesHowever, it is observed that an overwhelming majority (79%) of the respondents in thestudy area had medium to high attitude towards sustainable agriculture. Most of therespondents of the study area knew the importance of sustainable agriculture. Many ofthem were agreed to the necessity of practicing sustainable agriculture to maintain aproper environment for agricultural production. They opined that, modern techniques likeexcess use of chemical fertilizer made the field unproductive and it is a threat to theagriculture.Relationship between selected characteristics of the farmers and their attitude towardssustainable agricultural practicesCoefficient of correlation was computed in order to explore the relationships between theselected characteristics of the farmers and their attitude towards sustainable agriculturalpractices. The null hypothesis was “there was no statistically significant relationship existsbetween the selected characteristics of the farmers and their attitude towards sustainableagricultural practices”. Relationships between the selected characteristics of the farmersand their attitude towards sustainable agricultural practices have been presented inTable 3.Table 3. Relationship between selected characteristics of the farmers and their attitudetowards sustainable agricultural practicesSelected personal attributesCo-efficient of correlation (r)Age -0.137Level of education 0.560**Farm size 0.343**Family size 0.111Annual Income 0.293**Farming experience -0.190Cosmopoliteness 0.549**Extension contactKnowledge** Significant at 0.01 level of probability0.400**0.634**http://www.bdresearchpublications.com/journal/

Sustainable Agricultural PracticesThe level of education had significant positive relationship with the farmers attitudetowards sustainable agricultural practices when ‘r’ value was 0.560** at 1% level ofsignificance. It means that the higher the level of education of the farmers, the highertheir attitude towards sustainable agricultural practices, i.e., the educated respondentshad better practice of sustainable agriculture. So the null hypothesis ‘there was nosignificant relationship between education and the response towards sustainableagricultural practice’ was rejected. Education helped to gain knowledge and thusincreased their power of understanding. Consequently their outlook was broadened andhorizon of knowledge was expanded. The real and outer world is exposed to aneducated man and he can gain various experiences for perceiving a thing better (Uddinand Rahman, 2008). Thus, with the increase of level of education, sustainable agriculturalpractices increase. Study made by Mominul (2011) also demonstrated similar findings.There was a positive and significant relationship between farm size and farmers’ attitudeon sustainable agriculture practices as ‘r’ value was 0.343** at 1% level of significance. Sothe null hypothesis was rejected. It indicates that the higher the farm size, the higher theresponse on sustainable agricultural practices, i.e., farmers with medium and large farmsize had more response on sustainable agriculture practices. Farmers those had more farmcan take more risk than those had less farm. This risk bearing ability also increased theresponse towards sustainable agricultural practices. Rahman (2005) also found similarfindings in his studies. The annual income of the farmers had significant positiverelationship with attitude of the sustainable agricultural practices with computed ‘r’ valuewas 0.293**. It means that the higher the level of income of the respondents, the highertheir attitude towards sustainable agricultural practices. Afrad (2009) also found similarresults in his studies.Cosmopoliteness of the respondents had positive significant relationship with attitudetowards sustainable agricultural practices with computed ‘r’ value was 0.549** at 1% levelof significance. It means that the higher the level of cosmopoliteness of the respondents,the higher their attitude on sustainable agricultural practices. People differ in theirtraveling to different places while others confined themselves within a narrow boundary.Those people, who are outward going by nature, come into contact with differentpeople, see new experience and ideas. These people liberate themselves from narrowattitudes and develop within themselves a clearer outlook on life. These people exhibitdifferent attitudes and behaviors in many aspects of everyday life compared to others.Mominul (2011) found similar result in his studies.Extension contact of the respondents had positive significant relationship with the attitudeof the farmers towards sustainable agricultural practices and the computed ‘r’ value was0.400** at 1% level of significance. So the null hypothesis ‘there was no significantrelationship between extension contact and the attitude towards sustainable agriculturalpractice’ was rejected. That means higher the level of extension contact of therespondents, the higher their attitude n sustainable agricultural practices. Similarrelationship was also obtained by Alam (2007).Conclusioni. Most of the farmers of the study area were young aged, having large family size, smallfarm holding and had primary level of education with low to medium annual incomeand medium farming experience. Most of them had low extension contact, and lowcosmopoliteness.ii. More than sixty percent (65.6%) of the respondents had medium attitude towardssustainable agricultural practices compared to 21.1 % having low attitude and 13.3%had high attitude towards sustainable agricultural practices. The findings revealedthat farmers had a moderate attitude towards sustainable agricultural practices. Thismight be due to the fact that a considerable proportion of the farmers had notenough training exposure, moderate use of source of information and low extensioncontact.iii. Coefficient of correlation test indicated that education, farm size, annual income,cosmopoliteness, extension contact and knowledge showed positive significantrelationship with the attitude of the farmers towards sustainable agricultural practices,233http://www.bdresearchpublications.com/journal/

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