Adoption of Climate Resilient Agricultural Technologies for Sustainable Crop Production

During the past five decades the agriculture sector in southwestern region of Bangladesh had undergone wide-ranging changes in terms of ownership of land, climate resilient agricultural technologies, climate resilient crop varieties, cropping patterns, cultivation practices, productivity, and intensity of cultivation. The main objectives of the study were to identify climate resilient agricultural technologies which were adopted by the farmers, to determine the extent of adoption of climate resilient methods of crop production, crop varieties and cropping patterns, and to explore relationship between the selected characteristics of the farmers and their extent of adoption of climate resilient methods of crop production, crop varieties and cropping patterns. Data were collected from randomly selected 80 farmers of five villages of Dumuria upazila under Khulna district, from 13th to 25th January, 2022 by the researcher herself by using a structured interview schedule through face to face method. Appropriate scales were developed in order to measure the concerned variables. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) was used to test the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. The farmers adopted 11 climate resilient methods of crop production. Majority (66.3 percent) of the respondents had medium extent of adoption whereas, 21.3 percent of the respondents had low extent of adoption and 12.5 percent of the respondents had high extent of adoption of climate resilient methods. The respondents adopted gher dyke vegetable production mostly (94.16%) and less adopted floating bed vegetable production (0.83%). The farmers also adopted 32 climate resilient crop varieties among which 11, 13 and 8 varieties were rice, vegetables and fruits, respectively. Most (87.5 percent) of the respondents had medium extent of adoption while one tenth (10 percent) of them had low extent of adoption and a very few (2.5 percent) had high extent of adoption of climate resilient crop varieties. In the case of rice, vegetables and fruit varieties the highest extent of adoption was observed regarding BRRIdhan28 (84.48%), Super snowball (Cauliflower) (47%) and BARI tormuj-2 (34.54%), respectively while the lowest extent of adoption was observed regarding BRRIdhan86 (42.75%), BARI pepe-1 (Shahi pepe) (27.3%), BARI sofeda-2 (12.5%) and BARI kathal-1 (12.5%), respectively. The farmers adopted 4 climate resilient cropping patterns. Majority (58.8 percent) of the respondents had medium extent of adoption, 21.2 percent of the respondents had high extent of adoption whereas 20 percent of them had low extent of adoption. Among 4 climate resilient cropping patterns, highest extent of adoption was observed in Boro-Gher (vegetables)-Fallow (34.17%) while the lower extent of adoption was found incase of Fallow-Fallow-T. Aman (6.67%). There were 7 causes of adopting climate resilient agricultural technologies adopted by the farmers. An overwhelming majority (76.2 percent) had medium number of causes for adoption while 17.5 percent had high number of causes for adoption and a few (6.3 percent) had low number of causes for adoption about the causes of adopting climate resilient agricultural technologies. Among 7 causes of adoption, most (86.50%) of the respondents adopted climate resilient agricultural technologies because of  increasing cropping intensity and climate resilient high yielding cropping pattern (56.75%) was the less important cause in adopting climate resilient agricultural technologies. Besides there were 12 problems that all the respondent farmers faced. Majority (70 percent) of the respondents found to face medium problem and the rest 18.8 percent and 11.2 percent found to face high and low problem, respectively during adopting climate resilient agricultural technologies. Among 12 problems the respondents faced mostly the problem of saline soil (89.58 percent) and lower yield of resilient variety (32.5 percent) was the less severe problem faced by the respondents during adoption of climate resilient agricultural technologies. Among 13- selected characteristics of the respondent farmers level of education, experience in adoption of resilient technology, farm size, annual family income, cosmopolitanism, innovativeness, extension contact, training and knowledge was positively correlated with both of the adoption of climate resilient methods of crop production and cropping pattern, but none of the selected characteristics of the respondents showed any significant relationship with their extent of adoption of climate resilient crop varieties. Majority (66.3% and 58.8%) of the respondents showed medium adoption behavior regarding climate resilient agricultural methods and climate resilient cropping patterns respectively, while most (87.5%) of them showed same (medium) adoption behavior regarding climate resilient crop varieties. Most (86.50%) of the respondents adopted climate resilient agricultural technologies because of increasing cropping intensity, while all the respondents faced most severely the problem of saline soil (89.58%).

Key words: Adoption, climate resilient, agricultural technologies.

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