VEGETABLE FARMERS’ KNOWLEDGE ON ORGANIC FARMING

Abstract

The main purposes of this study were to determine farmers’ knowledge on organic farming and explore the relationship of the selected characteristics of the farmers’ with their knowledge on organic farming. The selected characteristics were age, education, family size, farm size, annual family income, training exposure, extension contact, innovativeness and cosmopoliteness. Data were gathered from proportionally and randomly selected 103 respondents (farmers) of different villages of Ramnathpur union and Madhupur union of Badarganj upazila under Rangpur district by using a pretested interview schedule during the period of 06 March to 19 March, 2023. Apart from descriptive statistical methods, Pearson's Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient analysis was used in order to analyze the data. Findings indicated that the majority (65.04%) of the respondents had medium knowledge on organic farming, 19.61% had low knowledge on organic farming and 15.53% had high knowledge on organic farming. Out of nine selected characteristics of the respondents, education, training exposure, extension contact and innovativeness had positive significant relationship with their knowledge on organic farming. The rest of the variables namely: age, family size, annual family income, farm size and cosmopoliteness did not show any significant relationships with their knowledge on organic farming. Therefore, it is concluded that adequate training and extension contact may help to increase farmers’ knowledge on organic farming.