College of Economics and Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei Province, 430070, PR China; Department of Agricultural Economics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensing, 2202, Bangladesh.
College of Economics and Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei Province, 430070, PR China.
J Environ Manage. 2021 Feb 15;280:111654. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111654. Epub 2020 Nov 19.
Conservation agriculture is considered as an agro-ecological approach to the sustainable and resource-saving crop production system. Previous studies on the adoption of agricultural innovation often consider socio-economic characteristics and overlook underlying psychological factors influencing farmers' behavioral intention. This study adopted three socio-psychological constructs, Attitude, Subjective Norm (SN), and Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC), which originated from the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), and proposed two new constructs, Knowledge (K) and Perceived Climatic Threats of Conventional Farming (PCTCV). Using the Extended Theory of Planned Behavior Model (ETPBM), this study analyzed factors affecting the intention of farmers to continue Conservation Agriculture (CA) for the following year (2020) in three districts located in the northern part of Bangladesh. This research found evidence from the hierarchical regression analysis that variables of ETPBM could explain 7% more variation (change in R) in intention than variables of TPB, while the socio-economic characteristics of farmers can explain only 0.5% more than the variables of ETPBM. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to determine and examine the extended theory and indicated that farmers' knowledge (K) had the highest total impact, while attitude had the highest direct impact on intention. The results indicated that factors including Attitude, SN, PBC, Knowledge (K), and PCTCV are positively significant when attempting to understand farmers' intentions to adopt CA. This study presented evidence about the effectiveness of ETPBM when assessing the farmers' intentions towards conservation farming. Based on these findings, we concluded that the combination of extension services for upgrading the level of knowledge concerning the importance of CA could significantly affect farmers' attitudes on intention towards the application of CA.
保护性农业被认为是一种农业生态方法，可以实现可持续和节约资源的作物生产系统。先前关于农业创新采用的研究通常考虑社会经济特征，而忽略了影响农民行为意图的潜在心理因素。本研究采用了三个社会心理构念，即态度、主观规范 (SN) 和感知行为控制 (PBC)，它们源于计划行为理论 (TPB)，并提出了两个新的构念，即知识 (K) 和传统耕作感知气候威胁 (PCTCV)。本研究使用扩展的计划行为理论模型 (ETPBM) 分析了位于孟加拉国北部三个地区的农民在次年 (2020 年) 继续采用保护性农业 (CA) 的意图的影响因素。这项研究从层次回归分析中发现证据表明，ETPBM 的变量可以比 TPB 的变量解释意图的变化 (R 的变化) 多 7%，而农民的社会经济特征只能比 ETPBM 的变量多解释 0.5%。结构方程模型 (SEM) 用于确定和检验扩展理论，并表明农民的知识 (K) 具有最高的总影响，而态度对意图具有最高的直接影响。结果表明，在尝试理解农民采用 CA 的意图时，态度、SN、PBC、知识 (K) 和 PCTCV 等因素具有积极的重要意义。本研究提供了关于在评估农民对保护性农业的采用意图时使用 ETPBM 的有效性的证据。基于这些发现，我们得出结论，结合推广服务以提高对 CA 重要性的认识水平，可以显著影响农民对 CA 应用的态度和意图。
