Factors Affecting Knowledge of Agricultural Experts Toward Organic Farming in Jihad-e-Keshavarzi Organization, Khuzestan Province

The undesirable negative consequences of conventional farming have lead to the need and emphasis for new sustainable agricultural production techniques. Organic farming has arisen to be considered as one of the sustainable agricultural systems. Agricultural experts play an important role in extension and spread of the system. The research goal is to investigate the effective factors on expert's knowledge toward organic farming. The survey was conducted using cluster random sampling among 114 agricultural experts in Khuzestan province. Questionnaire was employed for gathering data. The results indicated that access to agricultural and environmental information as well as the record of service have positive and direct effect on knowledge toward organic farming. Based on the results, variables of attitude towards health, attitude toward food supply within the framework of total environmental attitude, exert indirect effects on knowledge toward organic farming. The results of the research will be useful in directing the extension programs towards on improvement of knowledge and skill of agricultural experts as regards organic farming.