Farmers` Knowledge and Attitude of Organic Agriculture Among the Farmers of Bushehr Province

Neglecting the activities regarding environment conservation has been criticized by many agricultural experts of Iran. Therefore, the crisis of agricultural development in the country was attributed to the conventional agricultural system and its related problems and a new pattern of agriculture has been emphasized in order to achieve sustainable development. Alternative agriculture has been presented as one the solutions toward sustainable development. Oraganic agriculture is highly recommended as an acceptable productive system of sustainable farming. Cureently, organic farming is defined as an art of green agriculture. According to the novelty of this kind of farming in agriculture sector of Iran, analysis of the farmers` knowledge regarding the principles of organic agriculture was the main aim of the study. This research was accomplished using survey and structured questionnaire in order to collect required data from a random sample of 168 of farmers of Bushehr province. Based of findings, educated farmers have more knowldege about organic farming, so this kind of agriculture has been use by more educated farmers, as well. There was a significant difference between different groups of farmers in terms of risk taking personality and organic technique use in agricultural activities. Risk taker farmers were used organic agriculture more than the others. TV programs, farmers` discussion groups and communication with Organization of Agriculture Jihad were the main applicable communicative mehods which have been used by farmers in order to get required knowledge about organic farming, respectively. At last, some applicale recommendations were presented to train farmers regarding organic agriculture as well as effective behavioral changes of them towards organic farming.