Abstract
The purposes of this study were to assess the farmers' preference matching and adoption of modern rice cultivation practices and to explore relationships of 22 independent variables with the farmers' preference matching and adoption of modern rice cultivation practices. Data were collected from a sample of 250 farmers selected by multistage sampling procedure in Pukhra union under Baniachang Upazila of Habiganj district during June 2004 to February 2005. Farmers' preference matching of recommended seedling age, recommended planting time, recommended dose of urea, second top dress of urea, first top dress/split of urea, modern variety, recommended irrigation and land preparation and leveling were high while preference matching of recommended dose of potassium fertilizer, recommended dose of phosphorus fertilizer, quality seed, recommended weed control, recommended seedling/hill, recommended spacing, line transplanting, nursery irrigation, third top dress of urea and nursery insect control were medium. Overall preference matching of 19 practices indicate that 46.80 percent of the farmers had medium preference matching of modern rice cultivation practices compared to 35.60 percent having low preference matching and 17.60 percent high preference matching. Adoption of land preparation and leveling, modern variety, recommended dose of urea, recommended irrigation, second top dress of urea, recommended seedling/hill, recommended spacing, recommended planting time, recommended seedling age, recommended weed control, first top dress/split of urea, recommended dose of phosphorus fertilizer, recommended dose of potassium fertilizer and line transplanting were high while adoption of nursery irrigation was medium. Combined adoption scores of 19 modern rice cultivation practices of the farmers indicate that 42.00 percent of the farmers had medium adoption of modern rice cultivation practices compared to 31.20 percent having low adoption and 26.80 percent high adoption. Both chi-square and correlation test indicated that education, family education, knowledge, information sources use, supervision of rice cultivation practices, commercialization, rice productivity, use of agricultural credit, index of farm mechanization, varietal diversity index, cosmopoliteness, social participation, management orientation, innovation proneness, level of aspiration, risk orientation, awareness about pest hazards and attitude towards Integrated Nutrient Management of the farmers had positive significant relationship with their overall preference matching and adoption of modern rice cultivation practices. Stepwise regression analysis indicated that three variables namely innovation proneness (56.10 percent), family education (3.60 percent) and education (2.80 percent) were the important contributing characteristics of the farmers on preference matching which jointly contributed 62.50 percent variation to the total explained variation of 63.40 percent. In case of adoption of modern rice cultivation practices, innovation proneness (65.05 percent), information sources use (2.41 percent) and rice productivity (1.36 percent) were the best predictors and combinedly contributed 68.86 percent variation to the total explained variation of 70.40 percent. Path analysis revealed that education had negative direct effects while family education, information sources use and innovation proneness had positive direct effects on farmers' preference matching. Education, family education, information sources use and innovation proneness had low to substantial indirect effects on farmers' preference matching and were channelled through each other. In case of adoption, path analysis indicated that commercialization and cosmopoliteness had negative direct effects while information sources use, rice productivity, innovation proneness and family education had positive direct effects on farmers' adoption. Family education, information sources use, commercialization, rice productivity, cosmopoliteness and innovation proneness had low to substantial indirect effects on adoption and were channelled through each other.