Adoption of Recommended Potato Cultivation Practices by the Farmers in Some Selected Areas of Naogaon District

The main purpose of the study was to determine the extent of adoption of recommended potato cultivation practices by the farmers in some selected areas of Naogaon district. The study also explored the relationships between nine selected characteristics of the farmers and their adoption of recommended potato cultivation practices. Data were collected from 100 randomly selected potato farmers in five selected villages of Sreemanthopur union under Niamatpur upazila of Naogaon district during 01 February to 14 March 2007 with the help of a structured interview schedule. A great majority of the farmers had low to medium adoption of recommended variety (81%), recommended dose of fertilizers (60%), recommended plant protection measures (64%) and composite adoption of recommended potato cultivation practices (57%). Correlation analysis indicates that among the selected characteristics of the farmers, education level, organizational participation, extension media contact, innovativeness and cosmopoliteness showed significantly positive relationships with their adoption of recommended potato cultivation practices. Only age of the farmers showed significant negative relationship with their adoption of recommended potato cultivation practices. Farmers indicated that there were 20 problems which hindered them to adopt recommended potato cultivation practices. Among the problems, late blight disease infestation, non-availability of improved seed in time, virus attacks, non-availability of credit in time and lack of training about use of fertilizers were the major adoption barriers towards potato cultivation. It was also found that overwhelming majority (100%) of the farmers faced problems ranging from medium to high extent.