Study of opinion leaders and other farmers in technology diffusion and adoption in a progressive and less progressive village of Bangladesh

Abstract

The communication and adoption behaviours of opinion leaders and farmers in one progressive and one less progressive village from Mymensingh district, in Bangladesh were studied using sociometric techniques. Seventeen improved farm practices were selected to investigate the patterns of innovativeness. Two of the farm practices - use of formal agricultural credit and high yielding varieties (HYVs) of rice - were studied in depth. Data were gathered from personal interviews with 109 farmers from the progressive village, and 108 farmers from the less progressive village, including 38 and 47 opinion leaders respectively. Opinion leaders in both villages were significantly different from non-leaders in age, farming experience, achievement motivation, management skill, innovation proneness, exposure to modern farming information, own and total farm areas, relative subsistence pressure and area irrigated. Opinion leaders in the progressive village were similar to their counterparts in the less progressive village in 63 per cent of the selected variables, but differed significantly in family education, political knowledge, cosmopoliteness, innovation proneness, exposure to modern fanning information, contact with extension workers, area irrigated, percentage area irrigated and standard of living. Contact farmers nominated under the T and V system in these two villages differed significantly from opinion leaders in personal education, political knowledge, and standard of living. In the progressive village, both economic and non-economic sets of variables were effective in separating opinion leaders from contact fanners. However, in the less progressive village non-economic variables were more effective than economic variables in discriminating between opinion leaders and contact farmers. Opinion leaders in both villages obtained more formal agricultural credit but were not involved in lending money themselves. However, more non-leaders used informal sources of credit. The cost of borrowing varied greatly. For the opinion leaders and the other respondents in the less progressive village, the non-economic set of factors was better in discriminating adopters from non-adopters of formal agricultural credit. In the progressive village, however, for opinion leaders and respondents, the non-economic and economic sets of variables were almost equally effectively discriminating. In Bangladesh, HYVs of rice were introduced in 1966. However, it took three years in the progressive village and seven years in the less progressive village for farmers to start adopting them. By the mid-1980s the opinion leaders in the progressive village had all adopted HYVs of rice, whereas only 78.7 per cent of opinion leaders in the less progressive villages had done so.