Investigation of Farmers’ Environmental Behavior Components about Bio-Fertilizers Application (The Case of Alborz Province)

Subject Areas : Agriculture and Environment

Fatemeh Shafiee ¹ (Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Extension and Education, Sari University of Agricultural Sciences &Natural Resources*) Corresponding author))
Ahmad Rezvanfar ² (Professor, Department of Agricultural Extension and Education, Faculty of Agricultural Economics and Development, University of Tehran)
Mahdieh Sadat Mirtorabi ³ (Ph.D student, Department of Agricultural Extension and Education, Faculty of Agricultural Economics and Development, University of Tehran)

Received: 2016-01-22 Accepted : 2015-04-28 Published : 2018-03-21

Keywords: Environment, Sustainable Agriculture, Bio-Agriculture,

Abstract :

Background & Objective: Nowadays consumption of bio fertilizers as alternative of chemical fertilizers with decreasing environmental hazards has been affected farmers' environmental behavior. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the components of Alborz province farmers’ environmental behavior about bio fertilizers application. Method: The statistical population was farmers who were using bio-fertilizers that 45 of them were studied by snowball sampling method. The research instrument was a questionnaire that validity of it was obtained by a panel of experts and reliability of scales examined by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (greater than 0.7). Findings: The result indicated that farmers’ environmental behavior about using of bio fertilizers was more than intermediate level. In addition, there is a significant and positive correlation between a total of constitutive components of environmental behavior of the farmers and cultivated area, rate of environmental and economic perception of bio fertilizers application effects and rate of motivation factors for bio fertilizers consumption. Discussion and Conclusions: The results of regression analysis revealed that the variables of: rate of environmental and economic perception of bio fertilizers application effects and rate of motivation factors for bio fertilizers consumption, cultivated area, the rate of access to devices needed for use of bio fertilizers explained about  43% of variation of the dependent variable.

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