244 Governance and Education
did not use any insecticides increased from 1 per cent in pretest to 20 per cent in
the first post-test and to 32 per cent in the second post-test. In the 12 districts, 20
per cent of the farmers interviewed did not apply any insecticides. The insecticide
spray frequency distributions significantly shifted to the left with more farmers
applying only once or twice after the introduction of the media materials (Fig-
ure 12.1). The proportion of farmers spraying during the early tillering, late tiller-
ing and booting stages declined significantly (Friedman test chi-square = 7.6, P <
0.05) (Figure 12.2). In the pretest, 59 per cent and 84 per cent of the farmers
sprayed during the early and late tillering stages, respectively. In the first post-test,
the proportion of farmers spraying in the early and late tillering stages dropped to
28 per cent and 42 per cent, respectively, and in the second post-test, these propor-
tions further declined to 0.2 per cent and 19 per cent, respectively. In the 12 dis-
tricts, 13 per cent of the farmers sprayed during the early and 24 per cent in the
late tillering stages. The proportion of farmers spraying in the reproductive and
maturing stages initially declined in the first post-test but increased in the second
post-test, but were still lower than that in the pretest.
Although the number of insecticide sprays was reduced over the period, farm-
ers’ spray targets had not significantly changed (Friedman test chi-square = 0.33, P >
0.05). The rice leaf folder and other leaf-feeding insects remained the main targets,
Figure 12.1 Changes in rice farmer’s insecticide spray frequencies in Tan Tru and Tan
Thanh districts, Long An province, in August 1994 just before the introduction, 18
months after in February 1996 and 31 months after in March 1997