Farmers’ Knowledge on Use of Dolochun for Crop Production

The purposes of this study were to determine and describe the knowledge of the farmers on use of dolochun (a liming material from dolomite) for crop production, to explore the relationship of the selected characteristics of the farmers with their knowledge and the contributing factors to knowledge. The study was conducted in three unions under Domar upazila of Nilphamari district of northern Bangladesh. Data were collected from randomly selected 104 farmers with a structured interview schedule during 15th April to 25th June, 2014 . Nine selected characteristics of the farmers were considered to explore relationship with the farmers’ knowledge on use of dolochun. The regression analysis was run to identify the contributing factors that have effects on farmers’ knowledge on use of dolochun. In addition to structured interviews, three focus group discussions in three unions were carried out to get possible solutions of the constraints as identified by the farmers during interviewing. The findings revealed that the majority of the farmers (59.6 percent) had ‘fair’ knowledge on the use of dolochun while 25.0 percent and 15.4 percent had ‘poor’ and ‘good’ knowledge, respectively. Among nine selected characteristics of the respondents, educational qualification, training exposure, organizational participation, extension media contact and attitude towards use of dolochun had positive significant relationship, while age and family size of the respondents had negative significant relationships with their knowledge on the use of dolochun. The regression analysis indicates that training exposure of the farmers contributed highest in predicting their knowledge followed by family size, extension media contact and attitude towards use of dolochun.