نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی
نویسندگان
1 دانشیار گروه ترویج و آموزش کشاورزی، دانشگاه علوم کشاورزی و منابع طبیعی خوزستان، ملاثانی، ایران
2 استادیار گروه اقتصاد کشاورزی، دانشگاه علوم کشاورزی و منابع طبیعی خوزستان، ملاثانی، ایران
3 دکتری اقتصاد کشاورزی، دانشگاه شیراز، شیراز، ایران
چکیده
کلیدواژه‌ها
موضوعات
عنوان مقاله [English]
نویسندگان [English]
Introduction
Conventional agriculture uses more than 300 types of hazardous chemical compounds, such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers, to control pests and insects and to improve soil fertility. The use of synthetic inputs (e.g., fertilizers, pesticides) in agriculture is a common practice worldwide to increase productivity and profitability of crop production. Intensive farming leads to the accumulation of toxins in crops, atmosphere, groundwater, and soil. In addition, farmers engaged in non-organic production and consumers of non-organic foods are exposed to various health risks and diseases such as asthma, autism, physical disabilities, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and various types of cancer. The widespread use of pesticides, especially herbicides, has a potentially large impact on the environment and human health. Conventional agricultural systems rely heavily on the use of synthetic agricultural chemicals, leading to the loss of biodiversity and the damage to key ecosystem services worldwide. The results of many researches indicate that in conventional agriculture, the indiscriminate use of chemical inputs destroys the environment and degrades natural resources. Therefore, the main idea of this research was to identify the challenges of organic rice production as the most important and main food of the society.
Methodology
The statistical population studied included all the rice farmers of Shushtar city. The sample size was 388 people determined using the Karjesi and Morgan table, and the samples were selected for the study using the stratified sampling method with proportional assignment. The main research tool was a questionnaire whose validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and its reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient and composite reliability. Data analysis was done in two sections of descriptive and inferential statistics by SPSS and LISREL software.
Findings
The results of examining the challenges of organic rice production from the point of view of the people studied showed that the most important challenges included "the low level of rice farmers' skills" and "the lack of subsidies to farmers for organic cultivation". In addition, exploratory factor analysis classified the challenges of organic rice production into six factors: educational barriers, economic and support barriers, social barriers, motivational barriers, marketing barriers, and legal and policy barriers.
Discussion and Conclusion
This study aimed to investigate the challenges of organic rice production from the perspective of rice farmers in Shushtar County. The results showed that the most important challenges for rice farmers in this field were “low level of rice farmers’ skills” and “lack of subsidies to farmers for organic cultivation,” which were consistent with the results of studies (Panillo et al., 2019: Yu et al., 2020: Haryanto et al., 2021). In addition, factor analysis classified the challenges of developing organic rice cultivation into educational, economic and support, social, motivational, marketing, legal, and policy-making factors, which explained 68.639 percent of the total variance of the factors. The results of this section were consistent with the studies (Hriadi et al., 2019: Kokur et al., 2019). Also, the challenges identified in this section were confirmed by structural equation modeling. The results of this research can be of great help to policy makers in this field in order to promote safe behavior in the natural environment.
کلیدواژه‌ها [English]
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