Adoption of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Practices by the Farmers of Brahmanbaria District of Bangladesh

A study was conducted in two villages namely Kuti and Lashiara at Kuti union of Kasba upazila under Brahmanbaria district of Bangladesh. Out of 500 farmers, 100 were selected randomly and proportionately at the rate of 20%. Data were collected using interview schedule during the period from 1^st December, 2008 to 30^th December, 2008. Adoption quotient was computed and was determined as 78.45.An IPM Practice Use Index (IPUI) was computed which ranged from 0 to 300. Among the 12 selected practices, ‘water management’ ranked first having IPUI of 286 and ‘use of light trap for insect control’ ranked last with IPUI of 12. The possible extent of use of IPM practices score of a respondent ranged from 0 to 36, whereas the observed score was found to be 14–26 with an average 19.38 and standard deviation 2.34. It was observed that majority of the respondents (53%) had medium use, 22% had low and 21% had high use of IPM practices. The findings revealed that age, level of education, farm size, organizational participation, cosmopoliteness and knowledge on IPM practices of the respondents had positive and significant relationship with their extent of use of IPM practices. Family size, annual family income, extension media contact and innovativeness of the respondents had statistically non-significant relationships with their extent of use of IPM practices.