Agricultural Information Receipt, Application and Dissemination Behavior of FFS-IPM Club Farmers

The study was conducted to determine agricultural information receipt, application and dissemination behavior of farmer field school (FFS) farmers and to explore relationship between the selected characteristics of the farmers with their agricultural information receipt, application and dissemination behavior. Data were collected through personal interview from 100 FFS farmers of the five FFS-IPM clubs in Ujalkur union of Rampal upazila under Bagerhat district of Bangladesh during March to May 2014. Majority (65%) of the farmers had received medium level of agricultural information followed by high (32%) and low (3%). In case of farmers’ behavior towards agricultural information application, majority (55%) of them had medium level of application, while 44 percent had low and only 1 percent had higher level of application and in case of agricultural information dissemination, all the farmers (100%) showed low level of dissemination behavior. Ridge cropping and their management obtained most priority in case of agricultural information receipt and application behavior which indicate that they would like to practice ridge cropping as an important sub-cropping system. On the other hand, management practice of brinjal shoot and fruit borer (BSFB) gained main concern in case of agricultural information dissemination. Agricultural knowledge, cosmopoliteness, extension media contact, and training experience of the FFS farmers showed positive significant relationship with their agricultural information receipt, application and dissemination behavior and educational level showed positive significant relationship with agricultural information receipt and application behavior while organizational participation showed significant positive relationship with agricultural information dissemination behavior. Therefore, it can be concluded that the role of FFS-IPM club farmers was effective to some extent in case of agricultural information receipt and application while it was less effective in case of agricultural information dissemination.