Investigation of Factors Affecting Farmers' Motivation in Using Water and Soil Conservation Technologies

Water and soil conversation is one of the most important issues in agriculture and food production. It is necessary to identify the limitations and barriers to the development of water and soil conservation technologies and to address them and achieve development goals through enhancing the adoption rate of these technologies by farmers. This study aimed at investigating the measures of soil and water conservation at the farm level as well as determining the factors influencing the adoption of these technologies. For this purpose, the factors affecting farmers' intentions in applying the water and soil conservation technologies and activities were analyzed through the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the path analysis technique. The model of path analysis technique confirmed the effects of attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control on the farmer's intention, and also showed that in addition to the obvious variables, some invisible variables had also such significant effects on the farmers’ adoption, which caused overlaps. According to the results, the variable of farmer's attitude had the most significantly positive effect on farmers' intentions in the water and soil conservation activities. Then, perceived behavioral control and subjective norms had significantly positive effects on the intention of the farmer to apply the water and soil conservation technologies.