Farmer’s Attitude Towards Rental Combine Harvester in Thakugaon District

Abstract

The main purpose of the study was to determine the attitude of the farmers towards combined harvester. The study was carried out at Thakurgaon Sadar upazila of Thakurgaon district under Rangpur division. Ninety-eight (98) farmers were selected as sample from an updated list of 300 farmers’ who are rental user of combined harvester by following proper statistical techniques. Data were collected by a pre-tested interview schedule during 10 November to 10 December 2023. Simple and direct questions with different scales were used to obtain information. Pearson Co-efficient of Correlation (r) was computed to explore the relationships between the nine selected characteristics of the farmers and their attitude towards combined harvester. Just more than three-fourths (45.9 percent) of the respondents had moderately favourable attitude while (43.9 percent) of them had highly favourable attitude and only (10.0 percent) of them had lower favourable attitude towards combine harvester. Out of nine selected characteristics, four characteristics of the respondents such as education, farm size, social network and extension media contact had significant positive relationship with their attitude towards combine harvester, but age of the farmers had negative significant relationship with their attitude towards combine harvester. The remaining selected characteristics e.g. family size, annual income, level of mechanization experience and exposure to combine harvester technology did not show any significant relationship with their attitude towards combine harvester. Fragmented land & small farm size emerged as the most important constraints expressed by the farmers. The foremost suggestion cited by the farmers was organizing training program by government for the farmers on combine harvester. Increase of direct government and private investment was suggested by the farmers as the last suggestion.