Farmers' Attitude towards Farm Mechanization

The study aimed at exploring farmers’ attitude towards farm mechanization and finding out its relationships with the selected characteristics of the farmers. Problems faced by the farmers in farm mechanization and their corresponding solutions were also explored. Data were collected by using a pre-tested interview schedule at Phulbari upazila of Dinajpur district from randomly selected 93 respondents from the population of 931 farmers by using simple random sampling method during 25 September to 20 October 2019. Farmers’ attitude towards farm mechanization was the focus issue of the study and was measured by Likert scale. The observed score of farmers’ attitudes towards farm mechanization ranged from 13 to 59 with the mean score of 33.16 and a standard deviation of 8.78. Among the farmers, 63.4 percent belonged to neutral attitude category while 23.7 percent belonged to unfavorable and 12.9 percent to the favorable attitude category. Three out of nine selected characteristics of the farmers viz, educational qualification, training experience and extension media contact had significant positive relationships and annual income had negative significant relationship with their attitude towards farm mechanization. Rests of the characteristics had no significant relationship with the focus issue. Based on Problem Facing Indices (PFIs) the top ranked problem in relation to farm mechanization is machinery use is not profitable (PFI 223) and the top ranked solution suggested by the farmers in relation to farm mechanization is government subsidy in heavy farm machineries. Different agricultural development organizations should recognize the existing problems of farm mechanization and step forward for solving these problems