Farmers’ Knowledge on Pesticide Application in Vegetable Cultivation

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to describe some selected characteristics of the vegetable farmers; to assess the extent of farmers’ knowledge on pesticide application in vegetable cultivation, and to determine the factors that significantly influences farmers’ knowledge on pesticide application in vegetable cultivation. The study was conducted with randomly selected 109 vegetable farmers in Ganna union under Jhenaidah sadar upazila of Jhenaidah district. A pre-tested interview schedule was used to collect data from the respondents during 10^th February to 13^th March, 2018. Knowledge on pesticide application in vegetable cultivation was the dependent variable and the dependent variable was measured by 15 different questions on knowledge on pesticide application in vegetable cultivation and the nine selected characteristics of the respondents considered as the independent variables of the study. Majority (56.8 percent) of the respondents had medium knowledge while 23.9 percent and 19.3 percent of them had low and high knowledge on pesticide application in vegetable cultivation. Three characteristics of the respondent’s viz. education, training in vegetable cultivation and extension media contact had significant positive contribution to their knowledge on pesticide application in vegetable cultivation. But farm size, land under vegetable cultivation, income from vegetable cultivation, organizational participation and time spend in vegetable cultivation had no significant contribution to their knowledge on pesticide application in vegetable cultivation.