Assessment Of The Adoption Of Sustainable Agriculture Practices: Implications For Agricultural Education

Abstract

The study sought to determine the perceptions of selected farmers on issues related to sustainable agriculture practices. The study found farmers were positive about sustainable agriculture practices but still had several concerns about some practices within the concept. Farmers were trying several different practices and were open to experiment with new ideas. Most farmers appeared to be at an information gathering stage. The process of education used at this point in decision-making about new practices could be critical for the level of adoption. The results of this study indicated that the process of needs assessment and analysis was required on a continuous basis if information about sustainable agricultural practices were to be completely understood and fully implemented.

Environmentally-friendly agricultural practices and their acceptance by smallholder farmers in China—A case study in Xinxiang County, Henan Province

“…To refine analyses, relative advantage is split into three independent factors: time demands, costs and risks (Sattler et al, 2010). Compatibility refers to the degree of change required to assimilate an innovative practice into an individual's routines (Rogers, 2003), or its consistency with the potential users' existing values, experiences and needs, which are important factors for the adoption of technologies (Alonge et al,1995;Westra et al, 1997). Complexity refers to the anticipated difficulty in understanding and applying an innovation.…”

Perceptions of Paddy Farmers towards Sustainable Agricultural Technologies: Case of Haraz Catchments Area in Mazandaran province of Iran

“…Having tested the questionnaire for validity and reliability it was filled out by researcher and then the collected data were analyzed. Farmers' perceptions towards sustainable agricultural technologies were operationalized as the extent of their agreement with the statements related to 10 selected indicators of sustainable agriculture which were obtained from review of literature [1,4,5,7,9,13,14,16,22,31,35] . With consideration to rice cropping system's situation, the selected indicators of sustainable agriculture included negative effects of agrochemicals on environment and human health, reduced use of agrochemicals in agriculture, use of organic (animal and green) manure, retaining crop remains and wastes on farm after harvesting, low tillage, crop rotation and farm diversification, cultivation of legume after rice harvesting, biologic and agronomic control of pests.…”

“…Smathers [33] concluded in his study that, it was likely that the successful adoption of conservation practices would be influenced by a farmer's attitude and perceptions, than any other factor. Alonge and Martin [1] , found that farmer's perceptions regarding the compatibility of sustainable practices with their farming systems emerged as the best predictors of adoption of such practices. Sheikh et al [32] found that attitude towards the use of technology and contact with extension agents were the main factors influencing the adoption of no-tillage practice.…”

“…Hence, despite the dramatically quantitative achievements of modern agriculture, in the early of 1980s the green revolution technologies were criticized seriously [1,19,26,28] . This concern has promoted a number of initiatives to promote the adoption and diffusion of more sustainable agricultural technologies [13] .…”

“…After aforementioned period, it was felt that high productivity of conventional agriculture had been achieved at the cost of massive damage to the natural environment and troublesome social disruptions [1] . Hence, despite the dramatically quantitative achievements of modern agriculture, in the early of 1980s the green revolution technologies were criticized seriously [1,19,26,28] .…”