Perception of rural farmers on pesticide use in vegetable production

Abstract

Abstract. In rural areas of Bangladesh, farmers use various types of pesticides without thinking about the effects of these pesticides on deteriorating and polluting the environment. As a result, the present study examined the rural farmers’ perception on pesticide use for vegetable production. The study was conducted in four villages of Narsingdi district, Bangladesh. A total of 110 vegetables farmers were selected as sample for the study. Interview schedule was employed for collection of primary data. Simple statistics was used for analysis, viz. frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation, while correlation was employed to test the relationship between the selected socioeconomic characteristics and perception of the farmers on pesticide use in vegetable cultivation. Findings revealed that most of the respondents were over 35 years old, had high literacy level, 7 or less family members, contacted various information sources, received training (64.55%), earned low (78.2%) income annually and slightly above half (52.73%) participated in organizations. A greater majority of the respondents had favorable to highly favorable perception on pesticide use in vegetable production. Also, most of the respondents faced myriad of difficulties in dealing with pesticide, especially eye and skin difficulties. Organizational participation (r = 0.220) showed significant relationship with perception on pesticide use in vegetable production. Therefore, information dissemination should be improved by the government in order to increase awareness on safe use of pesticides, as well as establish centres for surveillance, prevention, and management of difficulties associated with dealing with pesticides.

Keywords

• agriculture
• rural farmers
• perception
• pesticides
• vegetable