Farmers' Perceptions of Pesticide Efficacy: Reflections on the Importance of Pest Management Practices Adoption

Abstract

Few integrated pest management programs pay specific attention to the decision-making process of farmers in choosing and applying pest management interventions. Thus, practical recommendations provided through extension services frequently fail to be adopted by farmers. A survey of farmers was conducted in the rural area of Arsanjan County in Fars province of southern Iran to explore farmers' perceptions of pesticide efficacy and to evaluate whether these perceptions are reflected in attitudes towards the importance of pest management practices adoption. The study revealed two distinct groups of farmers: group A with farmers who clearly had a positive opinion about the efficacy of the current pesticide products (i.e., they felt that current pesticides are generally effective), and group B with farmers who had a rather negative opinion about the efficacy of the current pesticide products (i.e., they felt that current pesticides are not so effective). Farmers in group A considered IPM principles to be the most important of three areas of pest management practices, they were aware of the potential health hazards of pesticide use, and they were interested in knowing about other alternatives for pest control besides the use of pesticides. By contrast, farmers in group B rated IPM principles as less important, they felt that pesticide use is the sole method of pest control, and they tended to increase pesticide use every year to control pests. Moreover, farmers in group B were not aware of the potential health hazards of pesticide use. Perceptions of pesticide efficacy were found to play a major role in the behavior of farmers towards the use of pesticides and the adoption of alternative methods of pest control such as IPM. Evidently, farmers' perceptions of pesticide efficacy should receive special attention by extension services as a critical point of intervention for rational pesticide use and adoption of IPM programs.

Farmers’ Criteria for Pesticide Selection and Use in the Pest Control Process

“…Hence, the issue is still in an exploratory and premature stage. To identify the criteria items that farmers consider in selecting and using a pesticide product in the pest control operation, an expert panel discussion and a relevant literature survey were carried out [9,19,22,[25][26][27]29,33]. The initial questionnaire items were first examined in three rounds by a panel organized by a plant protection professor, four local extension agents, and three researchers who majored in plant protection products, as well as five key informant farmers in pesticide use.…”

“…Farmers may be involved in pesticide overuse when trying to control different pests [13][14][15] because they often have limited information about pest occurrence and appropriate methods of control [12]. In fact, farmers may have different perceptions of pesticides [9] and, hence, they make their own decisions based on various factors and criteria [9,[16][17][18][19][20]. Thus, understanding what actually drives farmers' voluntary self-behaviors in pesticide use would be an important issue [21] in an appropriate plan for promoting safe behavior in pesticide use.…”

“…About 2.5 million tonnes (five billion pounds) of pesticides are used each year [8]. In other words, the most frequent method of managing pests and diseases in most agricultural sectors is through the application of pesticides [9]. Farmers depend heavily on pesticides [10], though several alternative strategies for pest management continue to evolve [11].…”

“…A review of the literature indicates that farmers' beliefs about pesticide performance are one of the most important criteria for choosing and using pesticides [9,10,19,[22][23][24]. If a pesticide does not have the necessary effectiveness to quickly kill the target pests, it may be less used by farmers or replaced by another pesticide.…”

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for Reducing Pesticide Residues in Crops and Natural Resources

“…Perceptions by farmers of pesticide efficacy were found to play a major role in farmers' behavior towards the use of pesticides and the adoption of alternative methods of pest control such as IPM (Hashemi and Damalas 2010). For example, pesticide use on any crop depends on the farmer's attitude whether to enhance the productivity to meet the market demands in search of enhanced income or subsistence farming for livelihood (Erbaugh et al 2000).…”