Institute for Sustainable Economic Development, Department of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Feistmantelstraße 4, 1180, Vienna, Austria.
Environ Manage. 2022 May;69(5):871-886. doi: 10.1007/s00267-022-01611-0. Epub 2022 Feb 25.
Glyphosate is controversially discussed because of its alleged harmful effects on human health and the environment. Although it is approved until December 2022 in the European Union, the Austrian government discusses a national ban. Research on farmers' intentions to deal with upcoming pesticide policy changes is limited and planned responses to a national glyphosate ban may inform accompanying measures and the development of weed management alternatives. Therefore, we have conducted 41 qualitative semi-structured interviews with farmers to explore their intended weed management if glyphosate-based herbicides were no longer available in Austria. The interviews were systematically analyzed, whereby the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) with its three social-psychological constructs served as guidance, i.e., attitude toward the planned behavior, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control toward the planned behavior. We grouped farmers based on differences in their behavioral intentions toward glyphosate-free weed management, and identified four types of farmers by assigning group-specific attributes of the TPB constructs to the groups of farmers with similar behavioral intentions. Given a national glyphosate ban, the farmers intend to implement either mechanical or chemical alternatives, which would be solely applied or combined with changes in cultivation. Attitude toward the planned behavior, descriptive norms, and perceived behavioral control affect behavioral intentions, whereas injunctive norms do not differ much between the interviewed farmers. What unites the four types of farmers is that they would rather accept a glyphosate ban, if weed management alternatives with similar effectiveness and costs were available.
草甘膦因其对人类健康和环境的潜在危害而备受争议。尽管它在欧盟的批准期限截至 2022 年 12 月，但奥地利政府正在讨论全国范围内的禁令。关于农民对即将到来的农药政策变化的处理意图的研究有限，而对全国草甘膦禁令的计划反应可能会为配套措施和杂草管理替代方案的发展提供信息。因此，我们对 41 名农民进行了 41 次定性半结构化访谈，以探讨如果奥地利不再使用基于草甘膦的除草剂，他们计划如何管理杂草。对访谈进行了系统分析，计划行为理论（TPB）及其三个社会心理结构作为指导，即对计划行为的态度、主观规范和对计划行为的感知行为控制。我们根据农民对无草甘膦杂草管理的行为意图的差异对农民进行分组，并通过将 TPB 结构的特定组属性分配给具有相似行为意图的农民组，确定了四种类型的农民。如果实施全国性草甘膦禁令，农民打算实施机械或化学替代方案，这些方案将单独应用或与种植方式的改变结合使用。对计划行为的态度、描述性规范和感知行为控制会影响行为意图，而规范性规范在接受采访的农民之间差异不大。将这四种类型的农民联系在一起的是，如果有类似效果和成本的杂草管理替代方案，他们宁愿接受草甘膦禁令。
