Farmers' Use of Ethno-Veterinary Medicine (EVM) in the Rearing and Management of Livestock: An Empirical Study in Bangladesh

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study attempted to (i) identify the Ethno-Veterinary Medicines (EVMs) used by the farmers of a selected area in Bangladesh, (ii) determine the extent to which the identified EVMs were being used by the farmers, and (iii) explore the relationships between farmers' selected characteristics and their extent of use of EVM. Data were collected from a randomly selected sample of 110 households out of a total population of 1096 during October 20 to November 30, 1996. Through extensive field visits, personal contacts, case studies together with group discussions, 32 EVMs related to livestock and poultry bird rearing and management were identified in the study area. A structured interview schedule containing these 32 EVMs were finally used to gather data needed as per the objectives of the study. Regarding farmers' extent of use of EVM by Ethno-Veterinary Medicine Use Indices (EVMUIs) scores, it was found that 31.25 percent of the EVMs was highly used as compared to 28.13 percent moderately used and 40.62 percent poorly used by the farmers. Computations on the extent of use of EVM by individual farmers revealed that 24.54 percent of the farmers were high users, 39.09 percent moderate users and 36.37 percent low users of the identified EVMs. Age, annual income, and farm size of the farmers were negatively related to their extent of use of EVM while being cosmopolite was positively related. All the four significant characteristics of the farmers fitted together in a linear regression model collectively accounted for 28.8 percent observed variance in their extent of use of EVM.