Identifying the Intention of Employing Good Agriculture Practices among Strawberry Growers in Marivan and Sarvabad Counties: Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior

The rapid increase in global population and the industrialization of agricultural products have led to the destruction of natural resources and posed great challenges to the ecosystem. The purpose of this descriptive research was to identify the intention of strawberry growers in Marivan and SarvAbad counties to apply Good Agriculture Practices (GAP). The statistical population of the study was strawberry growers in Marivan and SarvAbad county (N=241). The sample size determined via the Krejcie and Morgan table (n=174). The sampling was based on a proportional stratified random sampling approach. The research instrument was a structured questionnaire. Face and content validities of the questionnaire evaluated and verified by a group of experts. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by calculating the Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability (CR) coefficients. For data analysis, AMOS23 and SPSS23 software were used. Descriptive results showed that the highest and lowest mean for the components of GAP behavior were assigned to the harvesting and packaging (3.60 out of 5) and the field condition and location (2.96 out of 5), respectively. It also should be emphasized that the means calculated for the variables attitude (3.76 out of 5), subjective norms (3.45 out of 5), perceived behavioral control (3.19 out of 5), and intention of applying GAP (3.66 out of 5) were greater than the average score. Research findings showed that attitude and perceived behavioral control had positive and significant effects on farmers' intention toward applying GAP. So that these variables could explain about 25% of variation in strawberry growers’ intention toward applying GAP.