Explaining Environmental Behavior of Wheat Farmers: Application of Value-Belief-Norm Theory

The aim of this paper was to investigate environmental behavior of wheat farmers and its’ affecting factors according to the Stern’s Value-Beliefs-Norm Theory. The statistical population was wheat farmers in Shahid-Abad Dehestan, Fars province that 110 wheat farmers were selected as a sample using Krejcie and Morgan sample size table and cluster random sampling method. The study instrument was a questionnaire which its validity confirmed by a panel of experts and its’ reliability was confirmed using a pilot study and calculating Cronbach's Alpha coefficient. The results indicated that Biospheric and Altruistic values and also place attachment, place dependency, ecological worldview, awareness of consequences, and sense of obligation to take action had significant effects on environmental ethics but environmental ethics remained uncertain in explaining environmental behavior. Therefore, it seems that some moderator variables may change the association between the two variables. Accordingly, two variables of subjective-social norm and access to agricultural resources were identified. The findings of the covariance test showed that environmental ethics in the presence of newly grouped variable has an impact on environmental behavior and the interaction of environmental ethics and grouped variable on environmental behavior is significant.