Abstract
The study aimed to determine farmers' perception of using herbicide in rice
cultivation. Data were collected from a sample of 221 rice farmers of two villages from
two unions of two upazilas under Mymensingh district during 2017 to March
2018. Twelve selected characteristics of the rice farmers were considered as the
independent variables and farmers' perception of using herbicide was the dependent
variable of the study. The study revealed that more than two-thirds (67.4 percent) of the
respondents had highly favourable perception, 26.7 percent had favourable perception
and 5.4 percent had unfavourable perception. Aspect wise farmer' perception was also
determined. Economic of using herbicides obtained the highest mean score
indicating farmers' highly favourable perception on it. Environment and application
aspect ranked second and third position, respectively. The health aspect ranked fourth by
the rice farmers which indicated farmer' relative negligence about their own health. It
was observed that, out of twelve selected characteristics, seven variables were
significant with farmers' perception of using herbicide. These are level of education,
farm size, annual family income, training received, knowledge on environmental
pollution, contact with information sources and precautionary measures. All 12
independent variables were brought together with step-wise regression analysis. It
was observed that out of twelve independent variables, Only four, namely,
precautionary measures, knowledge on environmental pollution, training received
and contact with information sources had significant contribution to the perception of
herbicide use by the respondents. Path analysis rcvcalcd that two main contributors
(precautionary measures taken by the farmers and knowledge on environmental
pollution) of farmers' perception Of using herbicides are influenced by respondents
educational level, contact with information sources and training exposure. Though the
majority of the farmers had favourable to highly favourable perception of using
herbicide but they did not adopt personal protective equipment (PPE). The major
constraints faced by the farmers in using herbicide in rice cultivation were lack of
motivational campaign, poor adoption of PPE, poor adoption of IWM, dependency on
herbicide, lack Of need based training and illiteracy. The suggestions for overcoming
the constraints stated above were predicted as providing need based training on safe
use of herbicide. Awareness building programs should be organized by the extension
workers for motivating farmers to take precautionary mcasurcs while mixing or
spraying herbicides in the rice fields.