Farmers' Problem Confrontation Towards Seed Potato Production

Abstract

The objectives of the study were to (i) determine the farmers problem confrontation towards seed potato production, (ii) describe the selected characteristics of the farmers and (iii) explore the relationships between the selected characteristics of the farmers and their problem confrontation towards seed potato production. The selected characteristics of the seed potato growers were age, education, farm size, annual income, experience in potato production, training experience, extension media contact, innovativeness and knowledge on potato production. Data were collected from 105 randomly selected respondents of the three villages under Kushtia Sadar Upazila of Kushtia District by using interview schedule. Thirteen types of problems in regard of seed potato production were considered for measuring the farmers' problem confrontation towards seed potato production. According to problem confrontation index (PCI), the first five problems recognized most important among the thirteen problems were lack of quality seed (256), disease problem (215), insect problem (190), high price of quality seed (176) and lack of knowledge on quality seed potato production (168). The findings of the study revealed that more than three-fourth of the farmers (76.19%) had medium problem confrontation towards seed potato production while 12.38% had high problem and 11.43% had low problem confrontation towards seed potato production.  Co-efficient of correlation was computed to explore the relationship between the selected characteristics of the farmers and their problem confrontation towards seed potato production. Experience in potato production, training experience, extension media contact, innovativeness and knowledge on potato production of the farmers had negative significant relationships with their problem confrontation towards seed potato production. On the other hand, age, education, farm size and annual income of the farmers had no significant relationship with their problem confrontation towards seed potato production.

Keywords: Farmer, Problem confrontation, Seed potato production