KNOWLEDGE OF FARMERS IN ALNAMROOD DISTRICT / NINEVEH GOVERNORATE IN THE DANGERS OVERUSE OF CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS AND ITS RELATION WITH SOME VARIABLES

The objectives of this research were to determine the farmers knowledge level in Alnamrood District / Nineveh Governorate in the fields of overuse dangers of chemical fertilizers. Then to find out the differences of farmers knowledge according to some variables. The research sample included 84 respondents, data were collected through questionnaire consisted of two parts, the first was to measure the independent variables, the second part consisted of 29 items distributed to three dimensions of overuse dangers of chemical fertilizers. Content validity and comparison of extreme groups were used also, reliability was tested by using Kuder-Richardson estimates which was 0.92, item analysis was used, and data were analyzed by using arithmetic mean, percentage, and Kruskal-Wallis test. The results showed that 55.952% of the respondents had lowest knowledge in overuse dangers of chemical fertilizers, and the lowest knowledge level of respondents were in the field of dangers overuse of chemical fertilizers on human and the highest knowledge level of respondents were in the field of overuse dangers of chemical fertilizes on plant. Also, there were significant differences in the degree of farmers knowledge according to: education level, number of years using chemical fertilizers, cultural openness, degree of dependence on agricultural work, previous training and sources of information. While there were no significant differences according to number of family members working in agriculture.