Agricultural Researchers' Attitudes toward Sustainable Agriculture and its Determinants in ILAM Province, Iran

Subject Areas : International Journal of Agricultural Science and Research

N. Shiri ¹ , S.M.K. hashemi ² , A. Asadi ³ , Z. Motamedinia ⁴

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Received: 2012-03-06 Accepted : 2012-12-16 Published : 2012-12-01

Keywords: Attitude, Sustainable Agriculture, Natural Resources and Agricult, Ilam Province,

Abstract :

The accurate planning and management for sustainable agriculture results in appropriate behaviors ofindividuals towards sustainability through changes happened in individuals’ knowledge and attitudesof sustainability. A survey of natural resources and agricultural researchers (N = 85) was conducted inIranian Province of ILAM to explore their attitudes of sustainable agriculture and to identify factorsthat influence these attitudes. Results showed that the attitude of the majority (63.2%) of researcherstoward sustainable agriculture was moderate and negative. Also, there were significant differencesamong the researcher's attitudes towards sustainable agriculture on field of study and level ofeducation. Based on correlation coefficients, positive and significant relationships were found betweenresearchers’ work experience, the number of refereed papers published, the number of extensionpapers published, the number of papers presented at national and international conferences, thenumber of books published , and the number of translated books and attitude towards sustainableagriculture. In addition, multiple regression analysis showed that three variables including the numberof books published, the number of refereed papers published, and the number of books translatedaccount for explaining 36 percent of variances of the dependent variable (attitude towards sustainableagriculture).