Adoption of Hybrid Rice by the Farmers of Fulphur Upazila of Mymensingh District

The major purposes of the study were to determine extent of adoption of hybrid rice by the farmers of Fulpur upazila under Mymensingh district and to explore relationships between the farmers’ adoption behaviour and their nine selected characteristics. The characteristics of the farmers namely age, education, family size, farm size, annual income, extension media contact, innovativeness, cosmopoliteness, farmers’ knowledge constituted independent variables. The study was confined to two villages namely Bagunda and Panihori under Kakni union of Fulphur upazila in Mymensingh district. Population of the study was constituted by 200 farmers who were cultivating hybrid rice in the selected villages. From the population 50 percent was purposively selected to obtain a sample containing 100 respondents. Data were collected using pre-tested interview schedule during March 10 to April 15, 2009 through personal interview. Simple correlation (r) was computed to explore the relationships between the dependent and nine independent variables. Thirty eight percent of the farmers had medium adoption of hybrid rice cultivation followed by 37 percent had low and 25 percent had high adoption. The main reasons of hybrid rice adoption were (i) higher yield of hybrid rice than the HYV rice, (ii) higher profitability, (iii) non-complexity of cultivation procedure, (iv) availability of quality seeds, and (v) inspiration by extension agents for hybrid rice. Among the nine characteristics of farmers, three namely farm size, annual family income and innovativeness showed significant positive relationships with their adoption of hybrid rice cultivation.