Factors affecting agricultural sustainable activities among wheat producers

Keywords:
Sustainable behavior, wheat producer, agricultural activities, farmers.
ABSTRACT:


The sustainability of agricultural activities has been emphasized in many
studies. The main objective of this study is to determine the major factors affecting
the adoption of sustainable activities among wheat producers in Marvdasht county in
Iran. The Survey research was used and the sample consists of 178 farmers that
selected with simple random sampling technique from 10 villages. Findings showed a
positive correlation between educational level, knowledge on sustainability, attending
on educational classes, participation in extension activities, social norms and
conducting sustainable agricultural activities. The regression findings showed that
age, educational level, knowledge on sustainability, agricultural income, total land of
family, attending on educational classes, participation in extension activities, social
norms, controllability of production factors were major variables to explain variability
in adoption of sustainable activities among wheat producers. The study has provided
recommendations to improve of adoption rate in sustainable agricultural activities.
093-098 | JRA | 2012 | Vol 1 | No 2

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Journal of Research in
Agriculture
An International Scientific
Research Journal
Authors:
Rezaei-Moghaddam K
1
,
Fatemi M
2
and
Monfared

N
3
.

Institution:
1. Associate professor of
Agricultural Extension
and Education, Shiraz
University, Iran.

2. Ph.D Student of
Agricultural Extension
and Education, Shiraz
University, Iran.

3. Associate Professor of
Institute of Applied
Scientific Higher Education
Jihad-e-Agriculture, Iran.

Corresponding author:
Kurosh Rezaei-Moghaddam.










Email:
rezaei@shirazu.ac.ir.
dr.rezaeimoghaddam@gmail.com.

Phone No:
0098-711-2753366.
0098-9166134617.

Fax:
0098-711-2286072.

Web Address:
http://www.jagri.info
documents/AG0015.pdf.
Dates:
Received: 21 Jan 2012 Accepted: 28 Jan 2012 Published: 18 Jun 2012
Article Citation:
Rezaei-Moghaddam K, Fatemi M and Monfared

N.
Factors affecting agricultural sustainable activities among wheat producers.
Journal of Research in Agriculture (2012) 1(2): 093-098.
Original Research
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INTRODUCTION
Agriculture is an important economic sector
in developing countries such as Iran. In recent three
decades changes have raised to increase wheat
productivity in Iran such as improvement of water
management, introducing new varieties, laser leveling,
use of modern irrigation methods, chemical fertilizers,
herbicides and non-chemical procedures. The adoption
and impact of these activities is dependent to many
factors (Hezri & Hasan, 2004).
Environmental degradation, whether at the
global, national or local level, is a result of multiple
major human-related factors including human
intervention in natural ecosystems, current patterns of
economic development, and social organization.
Environment is threatened by modern man who has
become detached from nature. There is an urgent
necessity to ask questions related to the environmental
effects of socio-economic and political conditions and
reasons for technological changes.
Prediction and improvement of behaviors related
to environment should be and appears to be evolving as a
universal priority. Therefore, the study of environmental
attitudes and behaviors is a vitally important task for the
scientific community. Fortunately, environmental
research has given increased attention to behaviors to
promote environmental conservation. Contemporary
advances in environmental consciousness provide a
multitude of opportunities for research and new
knowledge generation in topics of interest to
environmental scientists.
One of the important steps to promote
environmental sustainability is identification of
determinant factors related to environmental behaviors
and development of a comprehensive model. Fishbein
and Ajzen's (1975) theory of reasoned action (TRA)
maintained that beliefs influence attitude. This theory
emphasized that the performance or nonperformance of a
specific behavior is determined by the intention to
perform that behavior. Consequently, prediction of
behavior from a priori attitude toward that behavior
would be accurate only when the attitude influences the
intention to perform the behavior.
The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) modifies
the TRA by incorporating the construct of perceived
behavioral control to address situations in which
individuals lack substantive control over a specific
behavior (Ajzen, 1991). Based on TPB, three
determinants explain behavioral intention: The attitude,
the subjective norm, and the perceived behavioral
control. Background variables such as demographical
factors, are supposed to influence the behavior through
the three determinants and the underlying intention.
Based on these theories, knowledge,
controllability of behavior, social norms and attitude are
the major factors to study the behaviors. Agricultural and
environmental knowledge has a direct relationship to
sustainable agricultural development. One important
direction in policy interventions to influence behavior is
diffusion of information and knowledge. Information
could mould or change attitudes. However, although
awareness and knowledge are necessary, they may often
be insufficient to induce behavioral change. It has
already been recognized that knowledge is the crucial
fourth factor of production and sustainable farming
practices are more demanding on the skills and
knowledge of farmers (Ingram & Morris, 2007).
The controllability factors of behavior are
contextual attributes and situational conditions that
facilitate proclivity to act and allow new behavior to be
realized. Ajzen and Madden (1985) defined perceived
behavioral control as a person's belief regarding the ease
or difficulty of engaging in a certain behavior. The more
resources and opportunities individuals think they
possess, and the fewer obstacles or impediments they
may anticipate, the greater should be their perceived
control over the considered behavior.

094 Journal of Research in Agriculture (2012) 1(2): 093-098
Moghaddam et al.,2012
Various researchers have proposed moral norm
as an independent predictor of attitude and behavior.
Moral norms are feelings of strong moral obligations that
people experience for engaging in pro-social behavior.
Awareness and knowledge about environmental
problems are considered as important preconditions for
developing moral norms in environmental behavior
(Bamberg & Mosher, 2007).
Attitudes have an important role to accept a new
technology as an alternative form of agriculture
(Rezaei-Moghaddam et al., 2005). The study of attitudes
is a core business of social psychology and more
generally of public opinion research. An attitude is a
psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a
particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor.
In this definition, the term psychological tendency
refers to an internal, mental state of a person and
evaluating bears reference to different types of
evaluative responding. These evaluative responses may
include overt and covert responses that can be of
cognitive, cognitive or affective nature (Carrus et al.,
2008). Vincent et al., (2011) indicated that factors
influencing the adaptation behavior and extent of
adaptation to climate variability are not the same for the
wheat farmers, implying the need for targeting them with
different packages of policies (Vincent et al., 2011;
Amakawa and Boateng, 2011).
The main objective of this research is to
determine major factors affecting adoption of sustainable
activities among wheat producers in Marvdasht county in
Iran. The variables such as demographic variables (age,
educational level, knowledge on sustainability),
economic variables (agricultural income, total land of
family), social variables (attending on extension classes,
participation in extension activities, social norms,
controllability of production factors) were studied as
independent variables in this study.

RESEARCH METHOD
A survey was conducted among wheat producers
in Marvdasht county in Iran. Simple random sampling
was used for the selection of 178 farmers from 10
villages. The survey involved face-to-face interviews for
data collection based on a questionnaire. A pilot study
was conducted on 30 farmers out of the studied
region to examine the validity and reliability of the
questionnaire, and Cronbachs alpha for the items of
Likert type scales were computed at 0.78 to 0.94. A
package of sustainable agricultural activities for wheat
cultivation was investigated in the study. The activities
consists of using rotation, consumption of animal
manure, consumption of green manure, organic farming,
non-chemical pest control, integration pest management
and conservation farming.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Adoption of sustainable activities among wheat
producers
Descriptive statistic regarding sustainable
agricultural activities by farmers is in table1. As it has
shown, about 78 percentage of the farmers fallow
rotations in medium and high level. In consumption of
animal manure, also 75 percentage of the farmers, were
in medium and high level. The consumption of green
manure was low, so that most of the farmers
(90 percentage) did not use or use in low level. In other
sustainable activities such as organic farming,
non- chemical pest control and integration pest control,
most of the farmers, were used in low level (Table 1). In
relation of conservation farming, 54 percentage of the
farmers were used in medium and high level. It could be
concluded from table 1 that the farmers were more
considered to sustainable agricultural activities such as
rotation, consumption of animal manure, conservation
farming, consumption of green manure, organic farming,
non-chemical pest control and integration pest control,
respectively. Rotation and using animal manure were
Journal of Research in Agriculture (2012) 1(2): 093-098 095
Moghaddam et al.,2012


used in highest level by farmers but integration and
non-chemical pest control were used in the lowest level.
Factors influencing adoption of sustainable
agricultural activities
There is a significant relationship between
knowledge on sustainability and conducting sustainable
activities among wheat producers (Table 2). The
relationship between educational level of farmers (r=0.4)
and sustainable activities was significant and positive at
0.001 level. There is a positive and significant
correlation between attending on extension classes and
sustainable activities at 0.001 level. This finding lends
support to Liao and lu (2008).
There is positive and significant correlation
between participation in extension activities and
conducting sustainable activities (r=0.4) at 0.001 level.
These are comparable with the findings of Monfared
(2011) and Malek-Saeidi et al., (2011).
The relationship between attending in extension
classes (r=0.34) and conducting sustainable activities is
positive and significant. The findings indicate the
number of higher contacts with extension agent attending
in educational classes; there is a higher rate of
sustainable activities. These are comparable with the
findings of Malek-Saeidi et al., (2011) and Monfared
(2011).
The results of multivariate regression of
independent variables on adoption of sustainable
activities were shown in Table 3. The F-test is significant
(F=57.70, p=0.001). The adjusted R square shows that
the entered variables on model explain 53.3 percent of
the variance in adoption of sustainable activities. The R
square changed of knowledge of sustainability showed
that the variable is the most important factor in
explaining the variability of adoption. Controllability of
production factors is an important variable to predict
sustainable activities. The R square changed of this
variable is 6.5 percent. As we see, educational level of
farmers explain 1.2 percent of variability in the adoption
of sustainable activities. Agricultural income also could
explain a part of percentage of conducting the
sustainable activities. Other results of multivariate
regression of independent variables on adoption of
sustainable activities have been showed in table 3.
Table 4 shows that one standard deviation
change in knowledge on sustainability causes a 0.447
standard deviation change in adoption of sustainable
096 Journal of Research in Agriculture (2012) 1(2): 093-098
Moghaddam et al.,2012
sustainable activities
Low Medium High
frequency percentage frequency percentage frequency percentage
Rotation 42 23.5 68 38.2 68 38.2
Consumption of animal
manure
53 29.7 84 47.1 50 28.08
Consumption of green
manure
90 50.5 60 33.7 28 15.7
Organic farming 103 57.8 60 33.7 15 8.4
Non-chemical pest
control
120 67.4 46 25.8 12 6.7
Integration pest control 162 91.01 9 5.05 7 3.9
Conservation farming 80 44.9 51 28.6 47 26.4
Table 1. Frequencies and percentage of sustainable activities among farmers
Independent variables
Correlation
coefficient
Age -0.1
Educational level 0.4**
Knowledge on sustainability 0.45**
Agricultural income 0.14
Total land of family 0.1
Attending on extension classes 034**
Social norms 0.25**
Controllability of production factors 0.1
Table 2. Correlations between independent
variables and sustainable activities
** Significant at 0.001 level
activities. Also, one standard deviation change in
participation in extension activities and educational level
increase 0.217 and 0.192 standard deviation in adoption
of sustainable activities, respectively. As it is clear in
table 4, one standard deviation increase in controllability
of production factors increases the adoption of activities
by 0.145 standard deviations.

CONCLUSIONS
Prediction and improvement of behaviors related
to environment should be and appears to be evolving as a
universal priority. Therefore, the study of environmental
attitudes and behaviors is a vitally important task for the
scientific community. Fortunately, environmental
research has given increased attention to behaviors to
promote environmental conservation. Contemporary
advances in sustainability consciousness provide a
multitude of opportunities for research and new
knowledge generation in topics of interest to
environmental scientists. Thus, a more robust and
systematic study of environmental issues seems to be
universally meritorious and very timely. The application
of modernity has changed the agricultural activities.
Application of modern technologies has caused different
impacts in villages. Diffusion of agricultural activities in
rural areas has different consequences. The study showed
that the variables educational level, knowledge on
sustainability, agricultural income, attending on
extension classes, social norms and controllability of
production factors explained major variance in adoption
of sustainable activities by farmers. Knowledge on
sustainability was the most important factor in explaining
the variability of adoption of sustainable activities. Also,
controllability of production factors and attending on
extension classes explained part of variability in the
adoption of sustainable activities. There was a positive
correlation between educational level, knowledge on
sustainability, attending on educational and extension
classes, social norms and conducting sustainable
agricultural activities. Agricultural policy makers should
prepare a special training about new sustainable
technologies to agriculture.
Deriving from the data set, the findings presented
in this study demonstrates the importance of knowledge
of sustainability on conducting agricultural sustainable
activities. This indicates that access to the agricultural
sustainable information in wheat farming has the strong
influence to conduct sustainable activities. This
emphasizes the important role of educational
organizations and other resources to improve knowledge
about sustainable agricultural systems, to decrease
negative impacts of conventional farming. There is
necessity to provide extension training in the use of
Journal of Research in Agriculture (2012) 1(2): 093-098 097
Moghaddam et al.,2012
Independent variables Mult. R R square Adjusted R square R square changed
Knowledge on sustainability 0.570 0.415 0.405 0.405
Controllability of production factors 0.60 0.482 0.470 0.065
Educational level 0.62 0.495 0.482 0.012
Agricultural income 0.640 0.505 0.496 0.014
Attending on extension classes 0.69 0.537 0.518 0.22
Social norms 0.72 0.552 0.533 0.015
Table 3. Multiple regression of independent variables on adoption of sustainable activities
Independent
variables
b Std.er Beta Sig
Knowledge on
sustainability
0.232 3.6 0.447 0.001
Controllability of
production factors
0.354 3.3 0.145 0.001
Educational level 0.710 3.17 0.192 0.001
Agricultural in-
come
0.297 3.10 0.113 0.013
Attending on
extension classes
0.096 3.05 0.076 0.041
Social norms 0.270 3.01 0.079 0.031
Table 4 Multiple regression of independent
variables on adoption of sustainable activities
Constant=-3.640, F=57.70, Sig=0.000


sustainable activities to rural areas. Farmers also need
knowledge and information along with other supports to
enable the adoption of sustainable and suitable
agricultural activities, therefore the extension have an
important role in this case.
The controllability of sustainable activities in
wheat production is contextual to attributes and
situational conditions that facilitate proclivity to act and
allow new activities to be realized. The more resources
and facilities that farmers think, they possess, and the
fewer obstacles or impediments they may anticipate, the
greater should be their perceived control over the
considered activities. It is important to implement
policymaking activities.

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