Farmers’ Perceptions, Insight Behavior and Communication Strategies for Rice Straw and Stubble Management in Thailand

Abstract

The adoption of rice straw and stubble management approaches can be affected by various factors. To understand the psychological factors influencing Thai farmers’ adoption of rice straw and stubble management approaches, three integrated behavioral theories were employed: the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) and the Health Belief Model (HBM). Then, a practical communication framework was synthesized and proposed to promote rice straw utilization for social-ecological benefits to achieve more sustainable agricultural production. Through a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews with 240 local farmers, a statistical analysis was performed employing cross-tab, stepwise multiple linear regression, one-way ANOVA and descriptive content analysis using QDA lite miner software. The key results clearly showed that perceived pro-environmental personal norms, perceived cues to rice straw utilization, perceived behavioral control, perceived severity of rice straw burning, perceived ascription of responsibility, and the perceived benefits of rice straw utilization were significantly negatively influenced by burning, and that there was a significantly negative difference to non-burning approaches. Meanwhile, cost savings as perceived benefits of the current option of burning showed a significantly positive difference when compared with incorporation and free-duck grazing options. In communication strategies to promote rice straw utilization for achieving sustainable agriculture, key messages should highlight the clear steps of rice straw utilization, as well as the costs and benefits of each option in terms of economic, health, environmental and social perspectives. Moreover, messages designed to promote action knowledge and self-efficacy at the group level, to promote perceived responsibility via self-awareness and self-commitment, and convenient channels of communication to the farmers can help to achieve more effective non-burning rice straw and stubble management.

Mechanical, Physical, and Chemical Properties of Mycelium-Based Composites Produced from Various Lignocellulosic Residues and Fungal Species

“…On the other hand, burning has resulted in a range of air pollution problems that involve increasing emissions of carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), and particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) [6,7]. Air pollution can potentially cause a range of serious health risks, environmental pollution, and economic problems on both local and regional levels across the globe [2,8,9]. Accordingly, multiple new research studies have focused on reducing and recycling agricultural and wood residues into useful and valuable products using a circular bio-economic approach [10].…”

Mechanisms to change farmers' drought adaptation behaviors in Sistan and Baluchistan Province, Iran

“…In addition, farmers' attitude toward drought adaptation strategies reinforces their intention to apply them. This has been established in many studies (Richter and Klöckner, 2017;Mahdavi, 2021;Bagheri and Teymouri, 2022;Karimi and Ataei, 2022;Sereenonchai and Arunrat, 2022).…”

“…The other important component that affected the farmers' drought adaptation behavior was behavioral intention. Joanes et al (2020), Wens et al (2021), Sereenonchai andArunrat (2022), andYang et al (2022) have reported that people's behaviors are determined by their intentions to do them. If farmers intend to use drought adaptation strategies, it will be more likely for drought adaptation behaviors to be exhibited by them.…”

A configuration study on rural residents’ willingness to participate in improving the rural living environment in less-developed areas—Evidence from six provinces of western China

“…The study proposed that the farmers' wishes directly influence their decision-making behavior. Sereenonchai and Arunrat (2022) combined the TPB with value-belief-norm (VBN), and the health belief model (HBM) presents a practical framework for communication that extends the flexibility of the TBP in practical research. Xu et al (2022) used the TPB to construct a two-stage decision-making framework for contracting-renewal, as well as to determine how the process influences the formation of willingness.…”