Adoption and sustainability of brri rice technology at farm level in Bangladesh

"Adoption and Sustainability of BRRI Rice Technology at Farm Level in Bangladesh", 2004 Researcher : MOHAMMAD ABDUR RASHID Thesis Supervisor : Professor Dr. Md. Monirul Islam Department of Agricultural Extension Education Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh April 2004 The study aimed at determining the adoption and sustainability of BRRI rice technology and to explore the contributions of 16 selected characteristics of farmers to each of adoption and sustainability of BRRI rice technology. Data were collected from a sample of 290 rice farmers surrounding the BRRI pilot project area covering six districts of Gazipur, Comilla, Barisal, Habiganj, Rangpur and Rajshahi during May 2001. Among 38 BRRI modern rice varieties only six varieties namely, BR1 (Chandina), BR3 (Biplab), BR11 (Mukta), BR14 (Gazi), BRRIdhan28, BRRIdhan29, BRRIdhan32 and BRRIdhan31 were highly familiar to the farmers. Among these, farmers had high adoption of BR1, BR3, BR11 and BR14 and moderate adoption of BRRIdhan27, BRRIdhan28 and BRRIdhan29. The five highly adopted manure and agrochemical technologies by the farmers were urea, triple super phosphate, muriate of potash, gypsum and cowdung/compost. The recommended split application of urea was the most highly adopted crop management technology. Such other technologies as perching, line transplanting, recommended time of transplanting and recommended number of seedling per hill also had moderate to high level. of adoption among the farmers. Among farm machinery technologies farmers had moderate adoption BRRI power pump and low adoption of BRRI power thresher.. The top five sustainable BRRI rice varieties were BR3 (Biplab), BR14 (Gazi), BR11 (Mukta), BRRIdhan28 and BR1 (Chandina). Among manure and agrochemical technology, gypsum, muriate of potash, triple super phosphate and urea were the top sustainable fertilizers. The top three sustainable crop management technologies were recommended split application of urea, perching for insect control and recommended number of seedlings per hill. The sustainability of BRRI power pump and BRRI thresher were high. The adoption of rice technology in general had strong relationship with sustainability of rice technology (r = 0.859**). The six variables that significantly contributed to the adoption of BRRI rice technology were farm size, farming experience, risk orientation, innovativeness, input availability and aspiration. Among these, innovativeness alone explained the major (78%) variation in adoption. The variations in sustainability of BRRI rice technology was significantly contributed by the three factors namely, innovativeness, farm size and input availability. Innovativeness alone-contributed 82.7% of the variation in sustainability of BRRI rice technology. The major constraints in rice production as reported by the farmers included: Lack of technical knowledge, unavailability of package technology, unavailability of essential inputs and lack of suitable land.