Adoption of Organic Potato Production in Ardabil Plain, Iran: an Application of the Extended Theory of Planned Behaviour
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Adoption of Organic Potato Production in Ardabil Plain, Iran: an Application of the Extended Theory of Planned Behaviour Bahram Imani 1 & Mohammad S. Allahyari 2,3 & Abumohammad Bondori 4 & Nayer Emami 4 & Hamid El Bilali 5 Received: 1 July 2019 / Accepted: 6 August 2020/ # European Association for Potato Research 2020
Abstract Chemical agricultural inputs (e.g. pesticides and fertilizers) pollute the environment and undermine food safety. In fact, agriculture is in a direct relationship with the environment and farmers’ behaviours have extensive positive or negative impacts on it. Therefore, enhancing farmers’ behaviours to go towards organic farming methods represents a promising approach. The present study aimed to explore the effective factors underpinning the willingness of potato farmers in the Ardabil Plain to adopt organic farming using an extended model of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. The statistical population was composed of all potato farmers of the Ardabil Plain, of which a sample of 200 farmers was selected by Cochran’s method (n = 200). Data collection instrument was a questionnaire whose validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and its reliability by Cronbach alpha. Data were subjected to statistical analyses in the SPSS23 and LISREL8.80 software packages. The results of structural equations showed that the variables of attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, moral norms, and environmental concerns accounted for 72% of the variance of potato farmers’ intention to engage in organic farming. Also, environmental concerns captured 43% of this variance. Keywords Ardabil Plain . Organic farming . Potato . Theory of planned behaviour
Introduction Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is a major staple food in many developing countries, including Iran (Bagheri and Shahpasand 2010; Bagheri and Javadi 2016). About 19.3 million hectares of arable land worldwide are annually allocated to growing potato and
* Bahram Imani [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Potato Research
they produce 388 million tonnes (FAOSTAT 2019). Potato is an employment-creating crop so that 800 million people in the world and 50,000 farmers in Iran are engaged in potato production (Bagheri and Javadi 2016). In 2017, the area of potato in Iran was 160,902 ha with a production of 5,102,342 t and an average yield of 31 t ha−1 (FAOSTAT 2019). The need to increase domestic production and decrease yield losses has forced farmers to apply various inputs including pesticides and chemical fertilizers without caring for their immediate and long-term implications for the environment (Negahban 2014). Presently, excessive use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers is conceived as a major health challenge in Iran. Per capita pesticide consumption rate for crops is 400 g and chemical fertilizers use has increased from 2.5 to 3.5 million tonnes in the past 10 years (Mirsalimi et al. 2014; Bondori 2018). Due to the improper use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides on Ir
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