Farmer's Perceptions toward Dust Phenomenon: Case of Abadan County

Agricultural sector as one of the most important economic sectors among others in Iran, has heavily affected by environmental changes. Recently, the occurrence of dust storms has influenced this sector, in a way many of its consequences for farmers are irreversible. Notwithstanding, farmer's perceptions regarding dust phenomenon will influence their attitude and behavior in order to urgently address and copping with this problem. So, a study was carried out to identify the perceptions of Abadans’ farmers regarding dust using the Q method. The concourse of statements was selected by following a process which included reviewing the related literature as well as interviewing with eight agricultural experts and informant farmers. Then statements were prioritized by experts to reach a final set of 48 statements as the Q sample. These final statements, then, were subjected to sort by farmers as the study participants selected through a purposive sampling. PQMethod software was used to analyze data which resulted in identifying four types of perceptions toward dust phenomenon among farmers.