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Farmers’ Perception on the Adverse Effects of Pesticides on Environment: The

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International Journal of Sustainable Agriculture 4 (2): 25-32, 2012
ISSN 2079-2107
© IDOSI Publications, 2012
DOI: 10.5829/idosi.ijsa.2012.04.02.23

Farmers’ Perception on the Adverse Effects of

Pesticides on Environment: The Case of Bangladesh
1,2
Muhammad Humayun Kabir and 2Ruslan Rainis

1
Department of Agricultural Extension and Information System,
Faculty of Agriculture, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Bangladesh
2
Department of Geography, School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang 11800 Malaysia

Abstract: Nowadays, beside burgeoning industrialization, modern agriculture is also polluting environment
through using assorted agro-chemicals especially pesticides. This continuity will not be clogged if the millions
of farmers, who actually carryout the agricultural operations in the fields, do not perceive the consequence of
frequent and heavy use of pesticide and behave accordingly. Hence, the present study is conducted to
determine the level of farmers’ perception about harmful effects of pesticides on environment. Attempt has also
taken to analyze some socio-economic characteristics that influence farmers’ perception. Data were collected
from 180 farmers of Dhaka district, Bangladesh through a face to face interview in September to November 2009.
Results showed that an overwhelming majority (86.1 %) of the farmers had low to medium level of perception;
while only 13.9% farmers had high perception regarding adverse effects of pesticides on environment. Results
of linear regression analysis indicated that extension contact, experience in vegetable farming, education and
training on integrated pest management (IPM) are the four factors that significantly influence the farmers’
perception. It is concluded that if policy makers and extension organizations concentrate on these factors, then
farmers’ will be more aware about the adverse effects of pesticides which is affirmative for sustainable
environment as well as sustainable agricultural production.

Key words: Farmers’ perception % Pesticides % Sustainable environment % Influencing factors % Bangladesh

INTRODUCTION humidity, salt, water and climate”. It is important that the

Ensure environmental sustainability is the seventh
one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
that all 193 United Nations member states including
Bangladesh have agreed to achieve by the year 2015 [1].
Hence, the environment is of global concern and is a very
important issue for discussion for the developed as well
as developing countries. It is defined as the whole
physical and biological systems in which man and other
organisms live. According to the American Heritage
Science Dictionary [2] “environment denotes all of the
biotic and abiotic factors that act on an organism,
population, or ecological community and influence its
survival and development. Biotic factors include the
organisms themselves, their food and their interactions.
Abiotic factors include such items as sunlight, soil, air,
environment is always changing. This is because; there
are so many changes in natural phenomena that each one
has impact on the other.
Agriculture and the environment have always been
closely inter-linked. We depend upon the environment, on
the resources of land, water, sunlight and biological
organisms for agricultural production. The environment
provides opportunities for agriculture, but it is hampered
by several activities [3]. The environment of the world is
slowly degrading due to industrial and agricultural
emissions and the people are very anxious about the
degradation or pollution as this may cause serious
damage to lives on the earth [4, 5]. Today, it has been an
established fact that agriculture sector beside industry is
another major polluter of environment on a local, regional
and global basis [6].

Corresponding Author: Muhammad Humayun Kabir, Department of Agricultural Extension and Information System,
Faculty of Agriculture, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Bangladesh.
E-mail: mhumayunsau@yahoo.com.
25
 Intl. J. Sustain. Agric., 4 (2): 25-32, 2012
The performance of Bangladesh agriculture sector
over the past three decades is significantly high because
of rapid growth of food grain production. For this
achievement in food production, application of pesticides
played a key role beside other factors like use of modern
varieties; improve irrigation, mechanization, new
technologies, use of chemical fertilizer etc. The invention
of pesticides is a blessing for modern agriculture, because
to ensure food production and its application must be
needed. They contribute to a stable supply of affordable
agricultural products with uniform quality [7]. Having
advantages of pesticide use in food production, the
question arises that why and how it pollutes
environment? Atrya et al. [8] and Palikhe, [9] argued that
pesticides are generally used to secure yields and
sometime, to improve the quality of food, but its non-
judicious use pollute the environment through
contaminates soil, ground and surface water.
At present almost 76% of the country’s population
live in rural areas and are directly or indirectly dependent
on agriculture for their livelihood [10]. A considerable
number of the population is farmers (approximately 37
million) who are heavily relying on pesticides in crop
production. Though the use of pesticides have reduced
crop losses due to pest infestation, its heavy and
continuous use has often led to increased crop losses
due to unintentional destruction of natural enemies of the
pests and the emergence of both pest resistance and
secondary pests [11]. The National Environment
Management Action Plan (NEMAP) of Bangladesh
government has identified that increased use of pesticides
have contributed to the pollution of potential surface and
ground water [12]. The scenario is an alarm for future
environmental catastrophes. In this context, it is the high
time to know whether the farmers are enough aware or not
about the environmental pollution caused by pesticides.
Therefore, the specific objectives of this paper are: (1) to
measure farmer’s perception level about adverse effects of
pesticides on environment, (2) to describe some socio-
economic factors related to the background of the farmers
and (3) to analyze the extent of influence of these factors
on farmers’ perception.
On the subject of agriculture, Bangladesh has two
challenges, in which one is to increase food production
and another is safe environment. In the mean time, the
country has tripled its production from 10 million metric
tons (mt) in 1971 to over 32 million mt today [13]. But, this
achievement comes as a result of environmental
degradation. So, the government and policy makers are
more apprehension about second one. The findings of the
26
study will disclose the perception level of the farmers
regarding adverse effects of pesticides on environment
and also detect the factors that influence their perception.
This would help to formulate the policies towards
achieving success in sustainable environment as well as
sustainable agricultural production in Bangladesh. In
addition, the outcome will contribute to achieve
Millennium Development Goal (MDG) seven (ensure
environmental sustainability).
The investigation of farmer’s perception regarding
pesticides impact on sustainable environment is an active
area of research in crop science, agricultural extension and
environmental studies. Already, more than a few studies
have been conducted regarding farmers’ perception, but
they focused on climate change, untreated wastewater
irrigation, or soil degradation etc [14-16]. Hence, there is
a scarcity of published research where farmers’ perception
regarding adverse effects of pesticides on environment
has been analyzed.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The Study Area: The study was conducted in the Savar
Upazila (Sub-district) under Dhaka District of Bangladesh
which is located in the centre of the country. The district
touches several agro-ecological zones with annual
average temperature ranges 11.5 to 34.5°C and mean
annual rainfall of 1931mm. It is coordinated by 23°42'N and
90°22'E. The Savar Upazila is located at a distance of
about 24 km to the northwest of Dhaka city and it is not a
part of the city. The land of the Upazila is composed of
alluvium soil of the Pleistocene period. From the east to
the west, the height of the land gradually increases. The
total cultivable land measures 28,800.80 hectares, in
addition to fallow land of 56.68 hectares [17]. The main
crops and vegetables grown here are paddy, jute, peanut,
chili, cabbage, carrot, tomato and cucumber. Because of
favorable weather, though all types of crop are affected
by pests, but vegetable face relentless attack. In order to
fight against pest, the farmers of the study area heavily
rely on pesticides.
Data Collection: A face to face interview was conducted
in September to November 2009, where 180 vegetable
farmers were randomly selected from six villages using the
random sampling method. In the process of selection of
these 180 farmers, first, an update list of all vegetable farm
family head of the selected villages was prepared with the
help of Agricultural Extension Officer (AEO) of Savar
Upazila and Sub-Assistant Agricultural Officer (SAAO)
 Intl. J. Sustain. Agric., 4 (2): 25-32, 2012
of the concerned Blocks. The list comprised a total of 720
constituting the population of this study. It was therefore
decided to survey the 180 farmers considering 25% of the
population. The reason for selection only vegetable
farmers is that they use more pesticide than crop farmers
which is the focus of the study. The frequency and
application rate of pesticide is especially higher in
vegetables than rice even though other crops [18, 19].
Though major technique of data collection was face to
face interview with the farmers, but beside this, three
focus group discussions were also carried out to cross
check the collected data. In addition, direct participants
observations were made to view farmers’ perception. The
180 vegetable farmers who are the head of the farming
household were interviewed by following a semi-
structured questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of
two sections:
The first section, which was meant to determine
farmers’ perceptions, a list of 15 statements related to
adverse effects of pesticides (insecticides and fungicides)
on environment (soil, water, living organism, insect, bird,
human beings and air) was taken. The statements were
selected from earlier studies by Conway [3], Backman [11]
and Islam [20] and also the socio-economic and
environmental conditions of the farming in study area.
The respondents were asked to extent their agreement
about these statements on a five-point Likert-type scale
(1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3= neither agree nor
disagree, 4 = agree and 5 = strongly agree). The sum of all
15 perception statements made up the perception score of
the study, ranging from 15 to 75 where 15 indicate
minimum perception and 75 indicate maximum. Therefore,
the dependent variable could take any value between
these ranges.
In the second section included both close type and
open-ended questions on socio-economic
characteristics of the farmers, such as age, gender,
household size, educational level, farm size, annual
income, experience in vegetable farming, innovativeness,
traveling to the nearest town, organizational participation,
training on IPM, extension contact and land ownership.
These characteristics were treated as independent
variables of the study. Among these independent
variables; age, education, household size, annual income,
farm size and experience in vegetable farming were
continuous and the rest others were categorical. The
variables were selected on the basis of generalization
about adopter categories provided by Rogers [21] and
also from the earlier literature of the region.
27
A panel of experts validated the questionnaire. The
questionnaire was pre-tested with 20 farmers and
necessary revision is made to establish its reliability. In
order to confirm reliability of the perception statements
Cronbach’s Alpha value was calculated and it was 0.76
which indicate appropriate reliability.
Data Analysis: The completed questionnaire was
analyzed by using both descriptive and inferential
statistical analysis of the research questions of the study.
SPSS version 19.0 statistical program was used to analyze
data. Descriptive statistics including means, standard
deviations and percentage were used to accomplish the
first and second objectives of the study. For the first
objective, an interpretative scale was developed with the
score up to 35 = low perception, 36 to 55 = medium
perception and above 55 = high perception. The stepwise
regression analysis was done to find out the extent of
socio-economic factors influence on farmers’ perception.
The dependent variable was calculated by adding score
of 15 statements on a five point scale, which sought to
determine farmers’ perception level on adverse effects of
pesticides on environment and this was considered as
continuous variable.
RESULTS AND DISCUSION
Farmers’ Perception Level on Adverse Effects of
Pesticides on Environment: Farmers’ perception was the
main focus of the study and to determine this, an overall
perception score was calculated for each farmer by
summing his/her scores. These scores of the respondent
could range from 18 - 67, against the possible range of 15
to 75 with an average of 41.05 and the standard deviation
of 12.18 (Table 1). Based on the perception score, the
farmers were divided into three categories. The numbers
of respondents who gain score up to 35, their perception
level were treated as low, lies between 36 to 55 were
medium and above 55 were considered as high. Though
farmers’ perception level was treated as a continuous
variable but for an interpretation there made three
categories by dividing three equal distances of the ranges
(15 to 75).
Table 1 show more than four-fifth of the farmers
(86.10%) had low to medium level of perception, while
only 13.90% farmers had high perception on adverse
effects of pesticides. The result is supported by the study
of Tatlidil et al. [22] who worked with 21 perception
statements on sustainable agriculture and found majority
 Intl. J. Sustain. Agric., 4 (2): 25-32, 2012

Table 1: Distribution of the respondents according to their perception score

Categories Number Percentage Possible range Observed range Mean SD
Low perception 64 35.6
(up to 35)
Medium perception 91 50.5 15-75 18-67 41.05 12.18
(36-55)
High perception 25 13.9
(above 55)

Table 2: Socio-economic characteristics of the respondents

Variables Variable definition and code Mean SD
Dependent variable PERCEPSCORE Farmers perception on the adverse effects of pesticides on environment (score) 41.05 12.18
Independent variables AGE Age of farmers (years) 46.59 14.54
EDUCATION Years of schooling (years) 4.88 2.62
GENDER 1 if male, 0 otherwise 0.96 0.20
HOHSIZE Household size (numbers) 4.24 0.83
FMSIZE Farm size (hectares) 0.67 0.60
ORGPART Organizational participation 1 if a farmer is a member of agricultural organization,
0 otherwise 0.48 0.50
INNOVAT Innovativeness 1 if a farmer is innovative, 0 otherwise 0.50 0.50
INCOME Annual income (in BDT) 115.16 81.88
TRAVELS Traveling to the nearest town 1 if at least one per fortnight, 0 otherwise 0.49 0.50
EXTCONT Extension contact 1 if at least one per month, 0 otherwise 0.31 0.46
TRANING Training on IPM 1 if access to training, 0 otherwise 0.26 0.44
LANDOWN Land ownership 1 if farmer is the owner of cultivated land, 0 otherwise 0.71 0.45
VEGFARMEXP Experience in vegetable farming (years) 13.16 8.05
Source: Authors’ computation
At the time of survey 1 US$= 70 BDT in 2009. BDT denotes Bangladeshi Taka, the official currency of Bangladesh.

of the perception statement under low and medium
category. In order to reduce the dependency on chemical
pesticide and keep environment sound, the government
of Bangladesh with alliance of Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) took a policy named IPM farming in
1981. Thereafter, different public and private organizations
were trying to make aware the farmers regarding adverse
effects of pesticides [23]. Despite these efforts being
made from the three decades, the findings reveal few
farmers pose high perception regarding adverse effects of
pesticides on environment. This is a gloomy picture. The
rational use of pesticide which is not harmful on
environment depends on many factors, especially on
farmers’ educational level, extension contact, participation
in training program, cosmopolite behavior, innovativeness
etc. Majority of the farmers had low level of education,
training and extension contact and medium level of
traveling behavior and innovativeness which probably
exposed to gain low to medium level of perception.
Socio-economic Characteristics of the Farmers:
The descriptive statistics of the explanatory factors of
the study are presented in Table 2. The average age of
the vegetable farmers of the study area was 47. In case of
the educational level, the mean year of schooling was 5
which are below secondary education. Only 4% of the
vegetable farmers were female. Due to laborious
intercultural operations of vegetable cultivation and also
socio cultural aspect, the women are less interested to
engage. The average household size was 4 which is
consistence with the national average. Below 1 hectare
was the mean farm size of the farmers which is in the range
(0.2 to 1 ha) for small farmers. About half (48%) of the
farmers engaged with agriculture related organizations;
50% farmers were innovative; and annual mean income
was 115 thousand (US $ 1643). In case of the cosmopolite
behavior, 49% farmers traveled to the nearest town at
least once per fortnight. With regard to contact with
extension agent, 31% of the respondents maintained
extension contact at least once per month. Majority of the
farmers were still beyond extension contact. The finding
is also supported by the document under ministry of
agriculture. Currently, one extension agent serves 6-7
villages or about 900 farm households [24]. As a result,
the agent can cover a few portions of the total farmers.
Average one fourth (26%) of the farmers participated on
the training program on IPM which is also consistent with
government record. Until the present, one hundred

28
 Intl. J. Sustain. Agric., 4 (2): 25-32, 2012

Table 3: Results of linear regression analysis.

Source of variation Sum of squares Degrees of freedom Mean square F-ratio Significance
Regression 14637.028 4 3659.257 53.687 0.000
Residual 11927.810 175 68.159
Total 26564.838 179
Variables included the model
variables R2 Cumulative R2 Change F Change P Change Beta
Extension contact 0.379 0.379 108.443 <0.001 0.343
Experience in vegetable farming 0.486 0.108 37.185 <0.001 0.220
Education 0.528 0.041 15.457 <0.001 0.227
Training on IPM 0.551 0.023 8.989 <0.01 0.189
Variables excluded the model
Variables Beta t Sig-t
Innovativeness -0.018 -0.346 0.730
Age 0.000 -0.002 0.998
Farm size 0.042 0.832 0.407
Annual income 0.009 0.180 0.858
Gender -0.019 -0.365 0.715
Household size 0.013 0.251 0.802
Land ownership -0.019 -.371 0.711
Traveling to the nearest town -0.036 -0.694 0.489
Organizational participation 0.014 0.263 0.793

thousand farmers have received season-long practical in
depth training on IPM, but statistics say it is only 0.27
percent of the estimated 37 million farmers of the country
[25]. The average number of farmers who cultivated their
own land was 71% and the mean experience in vegetable
farming was 13 years.
Factors Influencing Farmers’ Perception: To determine
the extent of influences by the selected socio-economic
factors on farmers’ perception (objective 3), linear
regression analysis was done. The dependent variable
was perception score which took the values from 18 to 67
(Table 1) and rest of the selected factors was treated as
independent variables. Because of the explanatory nature
of this part of the study a stepwise entry of all
independent variables were run. Table 3 shows the output
of linear regression analysis.
All 13 variables that were included in the model step
by step, only four named, extension contact, experience in
vegetable farming, education and training on IPM
significantly explained the model. These four variables
explained 55% of the variation in the level of farmers’
perception regarding adverse effects of pesticide on
environment. Among these four variables, extension
contact had the highest explanatory power, explaining
38% of the variation. Farming experience was the second
important variable explaining 11% of total explained
variation. The two other variables, such as education and
training on IPM together explained 6% of the variance in
the perception score among the farmers in the study area.
Moreover, the direction of the relationships between
the significant independent and dependent
variables was found to be sensible. The level of farmers’
perception increased with the increasing extension
contact, farming experience, education and training which
are logical.
Extension contact was the factor that exercised the
greatest influence on the farmers’ perception level
regarding adverse effects of pesticides on environment.
Such finding has been consistent with the findings of
other studies that revealed extension contact greatly
influenced the farmers to increase their perception on
sustainable agriculture and also to adopt new
environment friendly technology [22, 26-27]. In
Bangladesh, both public and private sector provide
extension service to the farmers, though the influence of
public sector is much more frequent than private one.
Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), the largest
public agro-based organization in Bangladesh, is the main
and only responsible for providing extension services to
the farmers. The DAE conduct extension services through
Sub Assistant Agriculturae Officer (SAAO) who live in
villages and visiting local farms individually and in group
meetings. Since the SAAOs are locally known to the
farmers, thus it helps them to motivate farmers regarding
harmful effects of pesticide overuse on environment in the
easiest and convenient way. The farmers also trust them
and always try to make a discussion with them before
taking steps about specific agricultural activities
especially application of pesticides in vegetable farming.

29
 Intl. J. Sustain. Agric., 4 (2): 25-32, 2012
The findings of this study also revealed the
influential role of the vegetable farming experience in the
farmers’ perception, a finding supported by the study
Thapa and Rattanasuteerakul, [28] that explored the
factors that influenced the extent of organic vegetable
farming. Experience could actually matter much for the
farmers to consider about the pros and cone of
continuous use of pesticide in vegetable farming. Farming
experience increases the likelihood of adoption of best
crop management practices as experienced farmers have
much knowledge and also information on that area [29].
Consistent with this, the farmers who had long experience
in vegetable farming were reluctant to use more pesticide.
Besides extension contact and experience in
vegetable farming, the two other variables named
education and training on IPM significantly explained the
variation in the level of farmers’ perception. Education
broadens the outlook and horizontally expansion the
knowledge. It keeps the farmers informed so they become
aware and prepared. There has a link with access to
information on improved technologies and production
challenges with higher educational level [30]. Farmers with
higher education level of the study area were more aware
about using pesticides. They used pesticide only when
needed and also in appropriate rate. The positive
influence of training on IPM variable suggests that
farmers with training had higher insight about
environmental pollution due to pesticides. The implication
here is that increasing knowledge and skill about
pesticides handling through participating the training,
farmers are becoming more aware about judicious use of
pesticide which keep environment safe and sound by
preserving desired production. A survey conducted on
Boro rice farmers regarding pesticide use and explore the
farmers who participated on the IPM training used fewer
numbers of spray and granular application than that of
untrained farmers. This has crystal clear positive impact
on soil and environment. Moreover, they reduced their
cost in 87.0 % and increase yield 10.6% than untrained
farmers [23] Hence, it can be said that training assists
farmers to cultivate crops in an environmentally friendly
and economically profitable way.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The results of the study indicate that only a fewer
portion of the farmers gained high perception regarding
adverse effects of pesticides on environment. In
Bangladesh, where millions of farmers are continuously
30
using pesticides for crop production in their limited land
to meet the food demand of ever-growing population, the
findings are not preferred to ensure environmental
sustainability. Hence, there is a vital need to improve their
perception level not only for the betterment of safe
environment but also for sustainable agricultural
production. This is because; sustainable environment is
a precondition of sustainable agricultural production. The
empirical estimates from the stepwise regression model
also show that farmers’ perception is influenced by
extension contact, experience in vegetable cultivation,
education and training on IPM.
The extension agent (SAAO) assists the farmers to
make favorable perception against inappropriate, heavy
and frequent use of pesticide which causes environmental
pollution. Albeit, the SAAOs are playing an important role
but they are inadequate in comparison to total farmers.
Moreover, they worked with a number of limitations.
Hence, government should provide incentives to them. In
addition, the government and DAE should take steps to
increase the extension agent-farmer ratio and making the
extension services more accessible to farmers. However,
to provide extension services to the farmers, more
emphasize should be given to those farmers who have
less experience, since the farmers having high experience
comparatively more aware about harmful effects of
pesticides.
DAE should launch adult education program for the
farmers, since education have an impact on farmers’
perception. Besides providing formal education through
this program, the main focus may be the rational use of
pesticide in crop production. It will assist the farmers to
increase their literacy and at the same time to be more
aware about adverse effects of pesticide. Training on IPM
is another helping hand for the farmers to be more aware
about environmental pollution caused by pesticides. At
present, DAE and some NGOs, individually or combine
with them or with other international agencies are
providing training to the farmers on IPM. Project with
larger scale on IPM should be introduced by these
organizations and implemented for the betterment of the
farmers as well as environment.
The overall score indicates farmers’ level of
perception about adverse effects of pesticides. However,
it is critical to predict from the score whether the farmers
adopt or not judicious use of pesticide. Hence, for clear
and in depth understanding, further research is needed on
adoption of judicious use of pesticide with analyzing
factors that influence or limit this behavior.
 Intl. J. Sustain. Agric., 4 (2): 25-32, 2012
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors greatly appreciate to SAURES (Sher-e-
Bangla Agricultural University Research System), Dhaka,
Bangladesh and TWAS-USM (The academy of sciences
for the developing world and Universiti Sains Malaysia,
Penang, Malaysia) postgraduate fellowship for financial
support to make this paper.
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