Farmers’ Attitude towards Sustainable Agriculture

The study was undertaken to determine farmers’ attitude towards sustainable agriculture and to explore the relationships between thirteen selected characteristics of the farmers and their attitude towards sustainable agriculture. The study was conducted in three unions of Muktagacha upazila under Mymensingh district, namely Mancon, Boragram and Kashimpur. One hundred farmers were randomly selected as the sample of the study from a population of 630 farmers. Data were collected from the farmers using personal interview schedule during the 10 March to 9 April 2004. Descriptive statistics and Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation are used to analyze data. Equal proportion of farmers (39%) having moderately favorable and highly favorable attitude towards sustainable agriculture. On the other hand, 4% and 18% farmers had highly unfavorable and moderately unfavorable attitude towards sustainable agriculture respectively. Farmers level of education, farm size, annual family income, training exposure, knowledge of environment friendly farming, experience of environment friendly farming practice and innovativeness had positive and significant relationship with their attitude towards sustainable agriculture. On the other hand, age, family size, farming experience, extension media exposure, cosmopoliteness and organizational participation did not show significant relationship with the same regard. The major problems confronted by the farmers in practicing sustainable agriculture were: lack of insects/ diseases resistance varieties of crops, lack of training facilities related to sustainable agriculture, lack of knowledge about environment friendly production technology of crops, and lack of knowledge about IPM.