Search

Organic Farming (OF) is a response to challenges caused by conventional or intensive agriculture. Successful organic production depends on farmers choosing to grow organic products. The main goal of this study is to analyze and identify factors affecting farmers' willingness to implement OF in southwest Iran. For this, we borrowed the health belief model (HBM) from the health psychology domain. The study, a questionnaire-based cross-sectional survey in Behbahan County, Khuzestan province, in southwest Iran, comprises 320 farmers who were selected through a multistage random sampling technique. The structural equations modeling reveals that four variables – cue to action, perceived barriers, general beliefs, and perceived benefits – account for 54% of the variance in farmers' willingness toward OF. Furthermore, cue to action is the most important factor determining farmer willingness towards implementing OF. The results reveal that HBM has appropriate explanatory power and is an effective tool for investigating farmer willingness toward OF. It is suggested that government agencies use socio-psychological frameworks to develop organic agriculture. Additionally, as government agencies develop policies that increase OF, the consideration of how farmers perceive the benefits and barriers of implementing OF is critical, along with understanding their general beliefs and concerns about the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in conventional agriculture. Offering extension services is also key. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research aimed at designing a model of sustainability-oriented responsible entrepreneurship among local producers of agricultural inputs. The paper highlights causal, contextual, and intervening conditions for sustainability entrepreneurship among these local producers. In addition, the necessary action strategies are provided to develop sustainability-oriented responsible entrepreneurship. The consequences of agricultural input production are also illustrated based on the insight of sustainability-oriented responsible entrepreneurship. The research population was composed of knowledge-intensive businesses working on pesticide production in Iran. They were sampled using the purposive sampling technique. The research instrument was interviews in the qualitative phase and a questionnaire in the quantitative phase. The qualitative data were analyzed by grounded theory in three steps of open, axial, and selective coding, and the sustainability-oriented responsible entrepreneurship model was derived. The results show that sustainability-oriented responsible entrepreneurship is composed of contextual conditions (e.g. the values and understanding of the society, training, and the role of media), causal conditions (e.g. entrepreneurial attitude and passion, higher demand, and specific diseases), and intervening conditions (e.g. international sanctions, support by the government and other institutions, and the development of technical and technological infrastructure). Also, the strategies of sustainability-oriented responsible entrepreneurship include increasing production capacity, matching national and global regulations, assessing environmental considerations, creating an entrepreneurial culture, and strengthening scientific research and international cooperation. These strategies will have extensive implications at the level of individuals (e.g. motivation), families (e.g. improvement of physical and mental health), and society (e.g. creating employment and value-added and developing sustainability-oriented entrepreneurship in the agricultural inputs domain). It was found in the quantitative phase that the model of sustainability-oriented responsible entrepreneurship was well fitted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]