Impact assessment of farmer training in integrated pest management in irrigated rice cultivation

Abstract

Extension activities encouraging adoption by farmers of integrated pest management practices in rice cultivation started in Sri Lanka in 1984, through farmer training. The objectives of this paper are to assess the impact of farmer training on the knowledge, attitude and adoption of rice IPM practices and to identify the reasons for partial and non adoption of these practices. Data were collected by personal interviews with a stratified random sample of 120 trained farmers and 60 untrained farmers from Mahaweli System 'C' area using a structured questionnaire. Trained farmers' knowledge about, attitude towards and adoption of IPM practices were significantly higher than those of the untrained farmers. Percentage of farmers falling under high adoption category was considerably low due to the difficulties experienced in adopting IPM practices. Therefore, further farmer training is necessary to enable them to select IPM practices appropriate to their fields, taking into consideration the limitations of those practices.