Association Between Farmer's Knowledge and Decision to Trade the Cattle in Anthrax Infected Village in Gunungkidul Regency

From 2019 until 2022, some villages in Gunungkidul had anthrax outbreaks twice and infected some people. These facts raise the question: Do the farmers know enough about anthrax and its risk? This study aims to identify the association between farmers' knowledge of anthrax from the anthrax outbreak village in Gunungkidul regency and their decision to trade cattle. This study was achieved at four anthrax outbreak villages in Gunungkidul Regency; 155 farmers answered the questionnaire, collecting information about knowledge, attitude, and practice about anthrax.
Demographic and Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) data were analyzed descriptively. The association between knowledge about anthrax and their decision to trade cattle
in the anthrax outbreak suspect village was measured by chi-square and odds ratio. The average score of farmers' anthrax knowledge is 3,14, ranging from a score of 0 to 8 and a median of 3.65 farmers have good knowledge of anthrax, and 90 farmers have bad knowledge of anthrax. Fourteen of 65 farmers with good knowledge and 21 of 90 with bad knowledge farmers decided still trade cattle from the anthrax-outbreak suspect village. This study found that knowledge of anthrax has no impact on the farmers' decision to trade cattle from the anthrax-outbreak suspect village (odds ratio (OR) 0.9, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.42-1.94, P = 0.792).
The education method that has been used on farmers needs to be evaluated to make farmers have better knowledge, attitude, and practice toward anthrax; further study is required to find the appropriate method of anthrax education.