Department of Agricultural Extension and Education, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Gorgan, Iran.
Pest Manag Sci. 2024 Sep;80(9):4427-4436. doi: 10.1002/ps.8151. Epub 2024 May 8.
The active participation of farmers in adopting eco-friendly practices is vital to mitigate the environmental and health risks linked to pesticide usage. Farmers' awareness of these risks significantly influences their adoption of integrated pest management (IPM) methods over traditional pesticide applications. This study sought to explore the range of understanding on pesticide effects, categorize IPM strategies employed in pest management, and examine the correlation between knowledge levels and IPM strategy choices. Data was gathered through structured questionnaires from 391 rice farmers in Sari County, Mazandaran province, Northern Iran.
Exploratory factor analysis revealed three distinct dimensions of pesticide risk knowledge: personal risk of pesticide, environmental risk of pesticide, and community risk of pesticide. Furthermore, the study identified three primary categories of IPM strategies: high familiarity, intermediate familiarity, and low familiarity. The results of the regression analysis indicated that the personal risk of pesticides (β = 0.556; P < 0.01) and the environmental risk of pesticides (β = 0.262; P < 0.01) are significantly correlated with the adoption of high familiarity IPM strategies. Furthermore, the study revealed that there was no significant statistical evidence to support the notion that different types of pesticide risk knowledge had any influence on the adoption of intermediate and low familiarity strategies.
The findings of this study imply the critical importance for agricultural extension programs to focus on enhancing farmers' knowledge of pesticide risks and various IPM strategies. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.
农民积极参与采用环保实践对于减轻与农药使用相关的环境和健康风险至关重要。农民对这些风险的认识极大地影响了他们采用综合虫害管理（IPM）方法而不是传统农药应用的方式。本研究旨在探讨对农药影响的理解范围，对虫害管理中采用的 IPM 策略进行分类，并检验知识水平与 IPM 策略选择之间的相关性。数据通过在伊朗北部马赞达兰省萨里县对 391 名水稻种植者进行的结构化问卷收集。
探索性因子分析揭示了农药风险知识的三个不同维度：个人农药风险、农药环境风险和社区农药风险。此外，研究确定了三种主要的 IPM 策略类别：高熟悉度、中等熟悉度和低熟悉度。回归分析的结果表明，个人农药风险（β=0.556；P<0.01）和农药环境风险（β=0.262；P<0.01）与高熟悉度 IPM 策略的采用显著相关。此外，研究表明，没有确凿的统计证据支持不同类型的农药风险知识会对采用中等和低熟悉度策略产生影响的观点。
本研究的结果表明，农业推广计划必须重点关注增强农民对农药风险和各种 IPM 策略的认识。 © 2024 化学工业协会。
