Farmers attitude toward sustainable agriculture and its relation with their sustainable behaviours of pest control and plant disease (case study: Arak township)

Due to the adverse effects of conventional agriculture on human health and the environment, there has been a lot of emphasis at the global and national level to move towards sustainable agriculture. Knowing the attitudinal and behavioral status of farmers, as agents of this policy, is very important. In this descriptive-correlational research, the attitudes and behavior of farmers regarding sustainable agriculture were studied with an emphasis on plant conservation. Using multi-stage random sampling method and Cochran's formula, 300 farmers of Arak city were selected and studied. The validity of the research tool was confirmed by using the opinions of experts, and its reliability was also obtained by conducting a preliminary study and calculating Cronbach's alpha greater than 0.86 for composite indicators. The results showed that 86% of farmers had a neutral attitude and only 14% had a favorable attitude regarding sustainable agriculture. The correlation coefficient showed that farmers' behavior has a positive and significant relationship with the variables of attitude towards sustainability, level of education, area of rainfed agricultural land, area of integrated agricultural land, level of interest in integration, contact with agricultural experts, contact with agricultural machinery sales centers, visit to Extension farms, use of radio, neighboring farmers in the village and a negative and significant relationship with farmers' monthly income. Regression analysis also showed that Six variables including attitude, agricultural land area, monthly income, education level, receiving information from input sellers and interest in integrating farms explain 33.9% of the variance of farmers' behavior regarding sustainability.