Application of the ‘theory of planned behavior’ to understand farmers’ intentions to accept water policy options using structural equation modeling

Abstract

The agricultural sector is the largest sector of water consumers, and farmers are important stakeholders involved in water conservation. This research has been conducted to determine how native farmers support different policy options to reduce agricultural water consumption. Structural equations modeling was used to construct structures derived from the ‘theory of planned behavior’. For each policy option, a separate model is proposed and the modeling data supports the view that attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control have a positive and significant effect on the intention. Attitudes, and perceived behavioral control, have the strongest effect on intention. Significantly, intention also have a positive impact on farmers' behavior. According to the results of the present research, the variance explained is over 85% for intentions and the variance explained for the farmers' behavior on water policy options is above 45% which is a result that indicates the high ability of the ‘theory of planned behavior’ in predicting policies achievement on saving agricultural water resources. It is argued that the field of psychology, and in particular environmental psychology, can play an important role in understanding more of the drivers to reduce agricultural water consumption and contribute to the social research program for water policy. HIGHLIGHTS A socio-psychological research on agricultural water resource saving policies.; Applies the theory of planned behavior to agricultural water resource saving policies.; Uses Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to investigate causal relationships between variables affecting farmers' adherence to agricultural water resource saving policies.;

Keywords

• agriculture water saving policy option
• structural equation modeling
• theory of planned behavior