Evaluation of knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of farmers regarding organic farming

Organic agricultural products are gaining popularity among the consumers day by day. Farmers are also becoming interested in producing organic agricultural commodities. The production strategy of organic food commodities is environment friendly and of high economic potential. However, the knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of farmers regarding organic farming is merely assessed. The main purpose of the study was to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practice of the farmers regarding organic farming. Data were collected from randomly selected 70 farmers from selected three villages named Ghola, Zoykhali and Shailmary of Jalma union of Batiaghata upazila under Khulna district of Bangladesh, through personal interview using an interview schedule. The eleven characteristics of the farmers which had been selected for the study were age, educational qualification, farming experience, organic farming experience, family size, farm size, monthly family income, organizational participation, cosmopolitanism, extension media contact and training on organic farming. The focus variables were the knowledge, attitude and practice of the farmers on organic farming. The respondents were asked to provide responses regarding the focus issues, and the given responses were recorded against the standard scale, and obtained scores were statistically analyzed for further interpretation. Majority (70%) of the respondents had medium knowledge, most (95.7%) of them had highly favorable attitude while their (51.4%) practice on organic farming was low. Among the ten practices, “application of cow dung in the field” was the highest practiced activity, while the least practiced activity was “regular soil test”. Among the selected eleven characteristics of the respondents, experience in organic farming (R²=0.145) (p