Investigating environmental ethics among agricultural experts (Case Study: Agricultural experts in Dezful’s Agricultural Jihad extension and service centers)

The relationship between human and nature has become one of the most important topics of the world community because it seems that natural resources are consumed and destroyed by humans faster than the time they need to recover, and due to unethical behavior with nature, many environmental problems have been arisen. Agricultural extension experts play a key role in informing and influencing farmers through education and development efforts. Understanding their attitude, behavior and ethics towards the environment can be effective on their practical strategy behaviors to change the attitude and environmental ethics of people including farmers. Considering the importance of the subject, this research aimed to investigate the environmental ethics of agricultural experts. The current research was carried out as a descriptive-cross-sectional census survey. The statistical population of interest included the agricultural experts worked at Dezful’s Agricultural Jihad Administration in 2023 (N=70). . The data collection instrument was a questionnaire whose validity was confirmed by consulting with a panel of experts and its reliability was approved by calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficient, composite reliability, homogeneity composite reliability and average variance extracted. Findings showed that the level of environmental ethics of agricultural experts is at an optimal level in termsof Anthropocentrism, Ecocentrism, and Theocentrism dimensions.The results of the Pearson correlation analysis showed that there were significant relationships between different dimensions of environmental ethics and the variables of use of informational resources and satisfaction of working in agricultural jihad extension and services centers. Also, there is a direct relationship between human-centered and eco-centered ethical dimension with the God-centered ethical dimension of experts.Therefore, the main focus of planners and policymakers on the human-centered and ecological-centered dimension improves the God-centered moral dimension of the studied experts in the field of ecology.