Iranian agricultural professionals’ knowledge on organic farming

Abstract

Organic farming is a holistic and sustainable food production system which can be considered as an
alternative to conventional agriculture in Iran. Each policy to diffusion of organic farming leads to
demands on knowledge of agricultural professionals. This is therefore important to understand
professionals’ knowledge on organic farming and to identify the key factors influencing it. The main
purpose of this research was to investigate factors influencing agricultural professionals’ knowledge
on organic farming. A survey was conducted among agricultural professionals in the Jihad-eKeshavarzi Organization of two southern provinces in Iran (Khuzestan and Fars), using stratified
random sampling for selection of sample. The results showed that age and access to information on
agriculture and environment were two important variables that had a positive and direct effect on the
organic knowledge. Other variables such as social norms about organic farming via health attitude,
nutrient attitude and general attitude towards environment have weak indirect effects on knowledge of
organic farming.