Factors Driving the Adoption of Organic Tea Farming Practices by the Farmers in Panchagarh District of Bangladesh

Tea is a regular export item for Bangladesh, but due to slow growth in production, the country's tea exports have declined. However, organic tea has a great future in this regard. Understanding the status and underlying factors of organic tea farming adoption has great potential to further enhance organic tea production and contribute to sustainable development. Therefore, our main objective was to identify factors influencing tea growers’ attitude, perception and adoption of organic tea farming in the Panchagarh district of Bangladesh. Factors affecting the farmers' belief in the adoption of organic farming were measured based on control factors (marketing factors and cost and benefit factors), attitude towards organic farming and social factors (extension factors) through a binary logistic regression model. This study showed that attitudes towards organic farming and perceptions on different dimensions are the major factors that bring about the adoption of organic farming. We also observed that organic growers had more favorable perception and it was significantly difference than non-organic growers reading various factors on organic farming. Our results demonstrated Education and knowledge greatly influence the farmers to form a highly favorable attitude towards organic tea farming. Moreover, attitudes towards organic farming and cost and benefit factors were indicated as the significant contributors to the adoption of organic tea farming practices. Finally, we suggested a participatory extension program by the Bangladesh Tea Board to change the attitudes and knowledge of the growers towards organic tea farming.