Research Article

Awareness and Adoption of Integrated Pest Managemet in Cotton by Growers of Hasilpur Area in Pakistan

Muhammad Zahid1*, Muhammad Ather Javed Khan2, Muhammad Idrees3 and Ahmad Kamran Khan4

1Agriculture Extension Department, Government of Punjab, Pakistan; 2Department of Continuing Education, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan; 3Department of Agricultural Extension Education and Communication, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan; 4Department of Entomology University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan.

Received | April 03, 2016; Accepted | January 09, 2018; Published | February 07, 2018

*Correspondence | Muhammad Zahid, Agriculture Extension Department, Government of Punjab, Pakistan Email: [email protected]

Citation | Zahid, M., M.A.J. Khan, M. Idrees and A.K. Khan. 2018. Awareness and adoption of integrated pest managemet in cotton by growers of Hasilpur area in Pakistan . Sarhad Journal of Agriculture, 34(1): 79-84.

DOI | http://dx.doi.org/10.17582/journal.sja/2018/34.1.79.84

Keywords | Integrated pest management, Farmer field school, Pest scouting, Hoeing, Thinning

Introduction

Two third population of Pakistan is living in rural areas and are engaged in agriculture. It accounts for 20.9% of the Gross Domestic Product and a source of livelihood of 43.5 percent of rural population. Cotton is the major cash crop and life of millions of farmers is dependent on it. Its production accounts for 1.5 percent in GDP and 7.1 percent in agriculture value addition. Cotton production remained higher since 2004-05 due to government’s provision of aggressive farmer training for small farmers and extension services (Government of Pakistan 2014-15). Climatic conditions are highly favorable for cotton production. But due to unawareness and no adoption of latest cotton production technology its yield per acre is too low. In Pakistan, agriculture extension department is engaged in helping the farming community to increase the productivity and improve the living standards through many extension programs (Abbas et al., 2009; Farooq et al., 2010). Integrated pest management is general approach to reduce the losses from pests in ways that are effective, economically sound and ecologically compatible (Wijnands, 2012). The unwise and indiscriminate use of pesticides had resulted in resistance development in insects and resurgence of new pests besides environmental pollution and public health hazards (Gibbons et al., 2015). Farmer Field School was the effective approach and developed first time in Indonesia in 1989 (Davis et al., 2010) and was the efficient means of extension education which increased the decision making power of the growers and led to get more higher quality yields than non-FFS farmers (Gwary et al., 2015). Keeping in view, Government. of Punjab had launched four years integrated pest management project in five districts of Punjab i.e. Lodhran, Vehari, Khanewal, Dera Gazi Khan and Bahawalpur. The main objectives of the project were to raise awareness among the farmers about the dangers of only reliance on chemical control, emphasizing the IPM options for pest control, increase in cotton production through reducing the cost benefit ratio. Demonstration plot of 02 Acres (One Acre IPM and one Acre of Farmer) were used in each FFS for conduction of Agro-Eco- System Analysis (AESA) (GoP, 2005-06). At farmer field school, farmers learned to carry out experiments, identify insects-pests and made recommendations based on Cotton Eco- System Analysis (CESA) (Mallah and Akram, 2007). The integration of biocontrol agents with recommended insecticides proved as effective and economical control tactic (Hassan et al., 2007; Beers and Schmidt, 2014). Habib et al. (2007) concluded that best agricultural practices had brought a positive change in the attitude of the FFS farmers. Haq et al. (2008) concluded that almost 71% of cotton growers were in a position to identify the insects and damage caused by them. It was found that 75% of cotton growers had orientation about side effects of pesticides, whereas 94% of respondents were involved in pesticide using practices. Ashraf et al. (2009) concluded that farmers learned by doing and became independent decision makers. Integrated pest management practices resulted in drastic reduction of pesticides use and stabilized cotton yield (Mayee et al., 2008). Farmer field school resulted in the capacity building of farming community and farmers practiced balanced use of fertilizers and insect pest identification were ranked 1 with mean value 3.40 and 3.22. Weeds controlled with chemicals and manually were ranked 1 and 2 with mean values 2.99 and 2.97 respectively (Khatam et al., 2013). Muhammad et al. (2013) studied pre and post FFS aspects and concluded that FFS had a significant effect to improve the social being of farmers. Different aspects like confidence building and spirit of help, decision making and spirit of self-help were significantly impacted in positive way due to post FFS. Siddiqui et al. (2012) confirmed that FFS was proved to be effective training programs for the cotton growers according to ecosystem friendly tactics. This approach transferred the obtained knowledge to non FFS farmers. Zahid et al. (2013) concluded that registered growers of FFS who were less than 40 years old had got maximum output than other age groups. Farmers in this age group had increased their cotton yields from 800-1000 kg per acre in pre and post FFS analysis. Keeping in view the community integrated pest management project is striving for creating awareness regarding cotton production technologies among its registered growers. Therefore the present study was designed with objective to assess the knowledge level of registered growers about cotton production technology and the role of Community Integrated Pest Management project.

Materials and Methods

The impact of integrated pest management was studied in tehsil Hasilpur of district Bahawalpur. There are 15 union councils and 108 villages in tehsil Hasilpur. The population consists of all the registered growers of farmer field schools. The lists of the farmers of FFS were obtained from the office of Deputy District Officer Agriculture (Ext.) Hasilpur.

The sample for the study

One Farmer Field School comprised of 25 farmers. One FFS from each union council was selected at random. So, 10 farmers from each FFS were selected randomly, thereby making a sample size of 150 respondents.

Instrumentation

Interview schedule was developed by the researcher from the synthesis of related literature reviewed, personal insights and discussions with knowledged and experienced professionals in the discipline of Agricultural Extension Education.

Data collection and analysis

Data collection was accomplished through the use of interview schedule. The registered growers were interviewed by author personally at their farms or homes. Although the interview schedule was constructed in English, yet the questions were administered in Urdu and Punjabi language for the convenience of interviewees to get the required accurate information. The data were analyzed statistically by using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS).

Results and Discussion

In farmer field school, farmers were taught about cotton production technology in order to conserve natural fauna, use of optimum resources at critical stage of cotton to ensure maximum yield. The data were collected about weeds control, thinning, knowledge about biological control, use of haphazard pesticide sprays, awareness about economic threshold level, use of pesticide sprays at economic threshold level, pest scouting, timings of spray, awareness about cotton diseases and clean cotton picking.

Table 1: Distribution of IPM farmers with regard to method adopted for weed control (n=150).

Agronomic practices: Results revealed 98.7% registered growers adopted hoeing while 4.0%, 60.7% adopted dab and chemical control respectively (Table 1). Khatam et al. (2013) findings which are dissimilar to present outcomes that chemical and manual control of weeds were ranked 1 and 2 with mean values 2.99 and 2.97. Majority (94.7%) of registered growers adopted thinning practices followed by 5.3% who did not adopt it (Figure 1). Siddiqui et al. (2012) reported the results which are in similar trends and recorded that weed control manually was the best method among all and thinning practice was adopted in better way by the trained farmers.

Biological control: Majority (98%) of registered growers had knowledge to some extent level about biological control of insect-pests while 2% had abundant knowledge while no one falls in no knowledge category (Figure 2). Khatam et al. (2013) reported that biological control of insect-pests was ranked 6 with mean value of 2.59. However, it was the entirely new approach for the farmers because they had no knowledge about it before this project.

Table 2: Distribution of IPM farmers with regard to haphazard use of pesticides sprays before adopting IPM and after IPM. (n=150).

Plant protection measures: Before IPM project 100% farmers used pesticides sprays haphazardly and had no knowledge of economic threshold level and right spray timings. But after project the majority (98.7%) of farmers did not use pesticides haphazardly (Table 2). The outcomes of Islam ul Haque, (2015) are in consistence that the indiscriminate use of pesticides in Pakistan resulted in more than 70% pesticides consumption in cotton crop. The majority (90.7%) of registered growers were aware about economic threshold level of harmful insects of cotton (Figure 3). Majority (86.7%) of registered growers used pesticides sprays at economic threshold levels of harmful insects of cotton (Figure 4). Maximum number of registered growers (91.3%) had knowledge about pest scouting and 87.3% were used pesticides after conducting pest scouting (Table 3). A large majority (74%) of registered growers sprayed at both morning and evening times while 12.0% at the morning and 14.0% at evening time (Table 4). Zahid et al. (2013) reported similar trend of findings that number of pesticides sprays reduced after adoption of integrated pest management and resulted in higher cotton. Hundred percent respondents were aware about cotton leaf curl virus disease and 72%, 30.7%, 86.0%, 18.0%, 24.0% about tirk, leaf spot, root rot, stem rot and other diseases (bacterial blight etc.) (Table 5).

Table 3: Distribution of IPM farmers with regard to pest scouting and use of pesticide after pest scouting (n=150).

Registered growers picked clean cotton which was the core component of the project. The majority (97.3%) of them picked clean cotton while 2.7% did not (Table 6).

Table 4: Distribution of IPM farmers with regard to spray timings in cotton (n=150).

Table 5: Distribution of IPM farmers with regard to awareness of diseases of cotton (n=150).

Table 6: Distribution of IPM farmers with regard to clean cotton picking (n=150).

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