Farmers' use of ethno-veterinary medicine (EVM) in the rearing and management of livestock: An empirical study in Bangladesh

The study attempted to (i) identify the Ethno-Veterinary Medicines (EVMs) u sed by the farmers of a selected area in Bangladesh, (ii) determine the ext ent to which the identified EVMs were being used by the farmers, and (iii) explore the relationships between farmers' selected characteristics and the ir extent of use of EVM. Data were collected from a randomly selected sampl e of 110 households out of a total population of 1096 during October 20 to November 30, 1996. Through extensive field visits, personal contacts, case studies together with group discussions, 32 EVMs related to livestock and p oultry bird rearing and management were identified in the study area. A str uctured interview schedule containing these 32 EVMs were finally used to ga ther data needed as per the objectives of the study. Regarding farmers' ext ent of use of EVM by Ethno-Veterinary Medicine Use Indices (EVMUIs) scores, it was found that 31.25 percent of the EVMs was highly used as compared to 28.13 percent moderately used and 40.62 percent poorly used by the farmers . Computations on the extent of use of EVM by individual farmers revealed t hat 24.54 percent of the farmers were high users, 39.09 percent moderate us ers and 36.37 percent low users of the identified EVMs. Age, annual income, and farm size of the farmers were negatively related to their extent of us e of EVM while being cosmopolite was positively related. All the four signi ficant characteristics of the farmers fitted together in a linear regressio n model collectively accounted for 28.8 percent observed variance in their extent of use of EVM.