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Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development (AJAD) - Call for papers!

Knowledge, Attitude, and Expectations of Coconut Farmers toward the Agrarian Reform Program in Northern Samar

(Philippines), Master of Science in Agrarian Studies (University of the Philippines Los Baños)

Thesis Abstract:

The study explored the sociodemographic, economic, and communication variables which determine the knowledge, attitude, and expectations of coconut farmers toward the agrarian reform program. It also described the existing tenurial arrangements among coconut farms in Palapag, Northern Samar, Philippines where 148 coconut farmers in 20 barangays were interviewed.

Frequency counts, percentages, means, and product moment correlation were used to describe and analyze the data.

Almost all respondents were male; the majority were Roman Catholics, married, attended formal school' below 47 years old; and with an average farming experience of 19.46 years. Their average farm size was 3.28 hectares while their average annual income from coconut farming was P2,373; from other crops, P935.14; from non-farm jobs, P1,629.48. Their average annual income from all sources was reported at P5,001.45. The majority of the respondent-farmers were owner-operators. Almost all respondents had not attended any seminar nor training pertaining to the agrarian reform program but were members of the parents-teachers organization (PTA) and coconut federation (COCOFED). Most respondent-farmers were plain members of the organization. More members attended meeting of the association "always" and "sometimes" than "oftentimes" and "never."

The transistor radio was the most accessible and frequently-used broadcast media while comics were the most accessible and most frequently-used print media. The transistor radio and fellow farmers were the most common sources of information on agrarian reform.

More than half of the respondents obtained scores less than the average on the knowledge aspect and they had generally "favorable" attitude toward the agrarian reform program. The respondents were generally "positive" in expecting benefits from the program.

More than half of the tenants and part-owners generally relied on their landowners for information on matters pertaining to the program and most described their tenure relationships as "good." The most common sharing arrangement was 70-30 (landlord-tenant).

Religion, household size, position in the organization, length of membership, frequency of organizational affiliation, and source of information were positively associated with knowledge while non-farm income and access to mass media were negatively correlated with knowledge. Size of residential land, gross income, length of membership, frequency of organizational affiliation, mass media used, and access were positively correlated with attitude while income from coconut and other crops were negatively correlated with attitude. Expectation was positively correlated with income from coconut farming and gross income. Knowledge and attitude were found to have high significant positive and negative correlations with expectation, respectively, but knowledge had no significant relationship with attitude.