International Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension Vol. 2(2), pp , July, ISSN: XXXX-XXXX

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1 International Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension Vol. 2(2), pp , July, ISSN: XXXX-XXXX IJAEE Research Article Use of climate change resilient technologies in vegetable cultivation by the farmers of Bangladesh Md. Masum Abdullah 1 *, Mohammad Barad Hossain Chowdhury 2, Md. Ahaduzzaman 3 1,3 Department of Agricultural Extension and Information System, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. 2 Bangladesh Parliament, Deputy Secretary, Government of Bangladesh. The main purpose of the research work was to determine the use of climate change resilient technologies in vegetable cultivation by the farmers of Bangladesh. Data were collected from randomly selected 112 farmers of Haibatpur Union by using an interview schedule. Data were collected during 25th June to 25th July, Appropriate scales were developed in order to measure the variables. Correlation test was used to ascertain the relationships between the concerned dependent and independent variables of the research work. The dependent variable was use of climate change resilient technology and the independent variables were age, education, farm size, annual income, credit availability, farming experience, source of farmland, training exposure, innovativeness, risk orientation and frequency of natural disaster. The highest proportion (81.3 percent) of the farmers had medium use while 9.8 percent had low use and only 8.9 percent had high use of climate change resilient technologies. Accordingly, the uses of climate change resilient technologies are positively significant to reduce the vulnerability of climate change. Education, farm size, annual income, source of farmland, innovativeness and training exposure and frequency of natural disaster had positive relationship to adopt such technologies, while age and farming experience had negative relationship with their adoption of climate change resilient technologies. Key words: Climate, Resilient, Vegetable, Technologies, Farmer, Bangladesh INTRODUCTION Bangladesh has an overwhelmingly agricultural economy. Agriculture accounts for 32% of its gross domestic product (GDP), and absorbs 63% of the country s labor force (BBS, 2014). On the other hand the agricultural sector of Bangladesh is highly susceptible to the effect of climate change (Huq et al., 2015). Traditionally the agriculture of Bangladesh is dominated by the production of rice to ensure better food security. However, recently the government of Bangladesh has called for a departure from rice-led growth to a more diversified production base that includes several non-rice crops (Hoque, 2000). The climate of Bangladesh is unique for vegetable production. Vegetable that is any herbaceous plant whose fruits, seeds, roots, tubers, bulbs, leaves etc is used as food. Nearly 100 different types of vegetable comprising both local and exotic type are grown in Bangladesh (BBS, 2014). *Corresponding author: Md. Masum Abdullah, Lecturer, Department of Agricultural Extension and Information System, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. kamranmasum@yahoo.com, Tel.: Co-author baratchy@gmail.com, Tel.: Co-author ahadraju_zaman@yahoo.com, Tel.:

2 Abdullah et al. 026 Vegetable is important for both the nutritional and financial point of view. Its contribution toward the food security in Bangladesh is also mentionable. However, the availability of vegetable is only about 1/5th of the recommended requirement of 200 g/person/day(bbs, 2013). Nevertheless vegetables contribute 3.2% of the agricultural Gross Domestic Product (BBS, 2014). Bangladesh earned US $ million from export of agricultural products in , which contributed 0.54% to total export earnings (BER, 2014). Bangladesh is one of the major horticultural countries in South Asia (Ali, 2000). Several studies have pointed out that there is considerable potential for growing horticultural crops in Bangladesh (Alam, 2005). Among the horticultural produce majority percentage comprises to vegetable. Farmers who are engaged in the production of vegetables often earn higher incomes than those engaged in the production of cereal crops alone (Weinberger and Lumpkin, 2005). Vegetables like eggplant, radish, cabbage, cauliflower, and pumpkin gave returns at least three times higher than rice (Ateng, 1998). For better production and to get more financial benefit from vegetable cultivation use of some climate change resilient technologies or adaptation technologies is at utmost importance. Use of organic fertilizer, high yielding variety, IPM etc. would be feasible for good and better production. According to the definition of UNFCCC (2005), climate change resilient technology or adaptation technology means the application of technology in order to reduce the vulnerability, or enhance the resilience, of a natural or human system to the [impact] of climate change. It is suggested that the current and future vulnerability to climate change can be reduce by using such technologies ADB (2014). These technologies can be categorized into two different types, such as, hard and soft technology. The hard technologies include the equipment and infrastructure while the soft technologies include management practice and institutional management (Christiansen et al., 2011). This research only considers two locally available resilient technologies such as (i) use of high yielding varieties (HYV) and Integrated Pest Management (IPM). As a climate change vulnerable country, the agricultural sector of Bangladesh needs to be highly adaptive to the climate resilience mechanism (Huq et al., 2015). The basic requirement for adaptation is to utilize the opportunity to adopt climate change resilient technologies by the farmers. On this regards, this research is an attempt to understand the adoption capacity of the farmers. The main purpose of the study is to determine the use of climate change resilient technologies in vegetable cultivation. The study aims at provide information regarding the following objectives: To determine and describe the selected characteristics of the farmer. To explore the relationships between the selected characteristics of the farmer and their use of climate change resilient technologies in vegetable cultivation. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study was conducted at Haibatpur Union (lowest local government tire) under Sadar Upazila (sub-district) of Jessore district which is very famous for vegetable production. The farmers of 12 selected villages from Haibatpur union were constituted as the population of the study. Out of 1125 vegetable farmers a sample of 112 (10% of 1125) were selected randomly as the samples for this study. Besides this, 10 percent of the sample size was selected randomly from the population which was included in the reserve list supposed to be interviewed only when a respondent in original sample was unavailable during data collection. Data were collected with an interview schedule which was pretested during the period of 25 June to 25 July, Descriptive analysis such as range, number and percentage distribution, mean and standard deviation were used whenever necessary. Pearson product moment coefficient was used in order to explore the relationship between the concerned variables. Farmers of survey area (Haibatpur Union) usually habituated in using several traditional cultivation technologies in vegetable cultivation, i.e. use of chemical fertilizer; use of local varieties; traditional way of weedicide and most importantly they use numerous insecticides and pesticides which they bought directly from local market. In view of that scenario to adopt climate change resilient technologies and to survey the existing uses by the farmers some technologies were taken into consideration. Those climate change resilient technologies were; a. use of organic fertilizer (cow dung, green manure, compost, farm yard manure etc.), b. use of integrated pest management (IPM), c. use of high yielding variety of vegetables. Use of technology was measured by using 4 point rating scale. Score 3 was assigned for frequently use response and thus score 2, 1, 0 was assigned for occasionally, rarely and not at all responses respectively. The respondents were asked to indicate their use of 12 recommended technologies. Thus the extent of use scores of a respondent could range from 0 to 36, 0 indicating low use of technologies and 36 indicate highest use of recommended technologies in vegetable cultivation. Age of the respondents was measured in terms of actual years from their birth to the time of interview. Education was measured as the ability of an individual vegetable farmer to read and write or formal education (school/college) completed up to a certain standard. It was expressed in terms of year of schooling. A score of

3 Int. J. Agric. Educ. Ext. 027 Table 1. Distribution of the vegetable farmers constituting the population, Sample and reserve list in different villagers in Haibatpur Union Name of Villages No. of farmers Population Sample Reserve List Manikdi Borohaibotpur Chotohoibatpur Natuapara Lalitadaho Mathurapur Shahbajpur Somospur Nischintopur Baliaghat Doherpara Rahomatpur Total Figure1. A map showing Haibatpur union under Jessore district one (1) was assigned for each year of schooling completed and if the respondent did not know how to read and write, his education score was given as 0 (zero) and a score of 0.5 (half) was given to that respondent who could sign his name only. Farm size of a farmer referred to the total area of land in hectare on which his/her family carried out farming operations. Annual income was measured in thousand taka. Credit availability was measured in thousand taka. Source of farmland was measured in hectare. Farming experience was measured by score. Score one (1) was assigned for each year of working. Training exposure of a farmer was measured by the total number of days he/she participated in different training programs. Innovativeness of a respondent was measured by summing up his/her scores for extent of use of ten selected technologies with five alternative responses as within one year, within two years, within three years, within four years and not at all and weights were assigned as 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0 respectively. Thus the score could range from 0 to 40, where 0 indicating low innovativeness and 40 indicating very high innovativeness. Risk orientation was measured by summing up his/her scores for extent of risk faced during use and application of vegetable technologies with four alternative responses as high, medium, low and not at all and weights were assigned to these responses as 3, 2, 1 and 0 respectively. Thus, the risk orientation score of a respondent could range from 0 to 36, where zero indicating low risk orientation d 36 indicating very high risk orientation. Frequency of natural disaster was measured by summing up the four alternative responses as regular, occasional, rare and not at all and weights

4 Abdullah et al. 028 Table 2. Selected characteristics of the vegetable farmers. Characteristics Age(years) Education(schooling years) Farm size(hectare) Annual income( 000 Taka) Range Categories Farmers Mean SD Possible Observed No. % Young Middle-aged Old Illiterate/can sign only(upto.5) Primary level (1-5) Secondary level (6-10) Above secondary level (above 10) Small farm( ) Medium farm( ) Large farm(above 0.61) Low income (upto 60) Medium income (61-300) to 600 High income (above 300) Low (upto 40) Medium (41-80) High (above 80) Credit availability( 000 Taka ) - 0 to 125 Farming experience(score) - 2 to 40 Source of farmland(hectare) Training exposure(score) - 0 to 3 Low (upto 10) Medium (10-25) High (above 25) Small farm land(0-0.2) Medium farm land( ) Large farm land(above 0.61) No training experience(0) Low training experience(1-3) Innovativeness(scor e) Risk orientation (score) Frequency of natural disaster (score) Low (upto 10) Medium (11-25) High (above 25) Low (Upto 24) Medium (25-30) High (above 30) Low (Upto 5) Medium (6-10) High (above 10) 10 9 Low use (upto 30) Use of technology (score) Medium use (31-40) High use (above 40) SD = Standard deviation Source: Author s estimation were assigned to these responses as 3, 2, 1 and 0 respectively and score could range from 0 to 15. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Selected characteristics of the vegetable farmers Relationships between the selected characteristics of the farmers and their use of recommended technologies in vegetable cultivation The summary result of correlation analysis has been presented in Table 3.

5 Int. J. Agric. Educ. Ext. 029 Table 3. Pearson product moment correlation coefficient analysis showing relationships between the selected characteristics of the farmers and their use of recommended technologies in vegetable cultivation (N = 112) Independent Variable Calculated value of r Dependent variable Age * Education 0.288** Farm size 0.298** Annual income 0.260** Credit availability Farming experience ** Source of farmland 0.222* Training exposure 0.339** Innovativeness 0.245** Risk orientation Frequency of natural disaster 0.276** *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level of probability Use of climate change resilient technologies in vegetable cultivation by the farmers of Bangladesh Table 4. Pearson product moment correlation coefficient analysis showing relationships between the use of technologies by the farmers and some climate change resilient technologies Dependent variable Climate change resilient Calculated value of r technologies Organic Fertilizer 0.219** Use of climate resilient technology Integrated Pest * Management(IPM) High Yielding Variety 0.265** *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level of probability **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level of probability Source: Author s estimation Table 3 reveals that education, farm size, annual income, source of farmland, training exposure, innovativeness and frequency of natural disaster had significant positive relationship with their use of climate change resilient technologies. On the other hand age, farming experience had significant negative relationship. Relationship between the use of technologies by the farmers and some climate change resilient technologies From the table 4 it is revealed that the use of climate resilient technologies are highly effective (positively significant relationship) to overcome the adversity of climate change in vegetable cultivation. However, the level of education of the farmers and exposure to training acts as important catalyst to use these technologies. Similar result was also found by Salinger et al.(2005). According to Salinger et al.(2005), a number of technologies and strategies that could help to reduce vulnerabilities of agriculture and forestry to climate change. Changing cropping pattern may act as an adaptation strategies as suggested by Stigter et al. (2005). Crop diversification is referred as a rational and cost effective technique to build resilience to climate change (Lin, 2011). It is also suggested that more diverse agro-ecosystems with a broader range of traits and functions will be better able to perform under changing condition of the environment (Lin, 2011). CONCLUSION Based on the study result, it can be concluded that education as well as training can help the farmers to understand the extent of climate change effect. Proper training combined with the higher level of education creates the climate awareness and innovativeness to use climate resilient technologies. Furthermore, the frequency of natural disaster enflame the farmers to respond climate change stimuli positively. As a climate vulnerable country, adoption of climate change resilient technologies among the farmers of Bangladesh is strongly evident. Climate change resilient technologies are still scanty to the farmers, although they are very much interested to adopt those technologies. This research strongly

6 Abdullah et al. 030 recommended that the policy makers should formulate proper policy to adopt those technologies among the farmers. REFERENCE Alam J (2005). Enhancing Sustainable Development of Diverse Agriculture in Bangladesh. CAPSA Working Paper, No.80. Ali M (2000). Dynamics of Vegetable Production and Consumption in Bangladesh. Shanhua, Taiwan: Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center. Asian Development Bank (ADB).Technologies to support climate change adaptation, Accessed May 13, 2016 Ateng B (1998).Comparative Advantage and Crop Diversification in Bangladesh, Dhaka. The University Press. BBS (2013). Statistical Yearbook of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Statistical Division, Ministry of Planning, Government of the People s Republic of Bangladesh, Dhaka. BBS (2014). Statistical Yearbook of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Statistical Division, Ministry of Planning, Government of the People s Republic of Bangladesh, Dhaka. BER (2014).Bangladesh Economic Review, Ministry of Finance, Government of the People s Republic of Bangladesh, Dhaka. Christiansen L, Olhoff A, Traerup S (2011). Technologies for Adaptation: Perspectives and Practical Experiences. Roskilde, Denmark. United Nations Environment Programme Risø Centre on Energy, Climate and Sustainable Development pectivesexperiences.pdf Haq N, Huge J, Boon E, Animesh KG (2015).Climate change impacts in agricultural communities in rural areas of costal Bangladesh: A tale of many stories.sustainibility.7: Hoque ME (2000). Crop diversification in Bangladesh. In: M.K. Papdemetriou and F.J. Dent (eds.).crop diversification in the Asia-Pacific Region, Bangkok. Lin BB (2011). Resilience in Agriculture through Crop Diversification: Adaptive Management for Environmental Change.Biosciences.61: Salinger MJ, Sivakumar MVK, Motha R (2005). Reducing vulnerability of agriculture and forestry to climate variability and change: workshop summary and recommendations. Climatic Change. 70: Stigter CJ, Dawei Z, Xurong M, Onyewoto LOZ (2005). Using traditional methods and indigenous technologies for coping with climate variability. Climatic Change. 70: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). (2005). Report on the Seminar on the Development and Transfer of Technologies for Adaptation to Climate Change: Note by the Secretariat. FCCC/SBSTA/2005/8. Weinberge K, Lumpkin TA (2005).Horticulture for Poverty Alleviation: The Unfunded Revolution. The World Vegetable Center. Taiwan. Accepted 08 June, 2016 Citation: Abdullah M, Chowdhury MBH, Ahaduzzaman M (2016). Use of climate change resilient technologies in vegetable cultivation by the farmers of Bangladesh. International Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension, 2(2): Copyright: 2016 Abdullah et al. This is an openaccess article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are cited.