PRACTICES OF INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT USE BY THE FARMERS

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine practices of !PM use by the farmers and to explore the relationship between the 'selected characteristics of the farmers and their use of rPM practices. The selected characteristics were: Age, Education, Family size, farm size, training received, annual family income, extension media contact and agricultural knowledge. The study was conducted in Birampur Upazila under Dinajpur district. Data were collected from randomly selected 108 farmers using an interview schedule. Pearson's product Moment Correlation was used for the statistical analysis. The findings revealed that majority (97.3 %) of the respondents had medium to high use of !PM practices. Only 2.7 percent of the respondents had low use oflPM practices. However, use of practice ofIPM in crop production by the farmers had positive significant relationship with their education and contact with extension media exposure, while age of the respondents had significant negative relationships with their practices. Among the five selected iPM practices, the farmers were found having good extent of use of IPM practices. Among the 5 identified IPM practices "chemical control" ranked first and 2nd, 3'", 4th and 5th position in the rank order were "control by cultivation", "cultivation of pest resistant variety", "mechanical control" and "biological control" respectively.