Compliance with pesticides' use regulations and guidelines among vegetable farmers: Evidence from the field

Abstract

The study looks at the factors that influence vegetable farmers' compliance to pesticide application guidelines and regulation. Compliance is measured by looking at whether vegetable farmers follow pesticide use regulations and guidelines or otherwise. To help achieve this objective, vegetable growing communities in Yunnan province were purposively selected for the study. Six hundred and thirty-two (632) vegetable farmers were selected through a systematic random sampling technique. The result shows that the number of years spent in schooling, quality driven motives, commercial oriented production, knowledge and experience in pesticide application, government supervision and extension support have positive statistical significance on compliance to pesticide guidelines and regulations. The result, however, reveals that vegetable farmers driven by quantity are less likely to comply with the pesticide use guidelines and regulations. The interactive effect of quantity and quality driven motives shows a positive significant effect on compliance. Programs and projects geared towards sensitizing farmers especially, vegetable farmers on correct usage of pesticide should be of concern to policy makers.Here we show for the first that interaction between quantity driven motive and quality driven motive has a positive effect on compliance with pesticide use guidelines and regulations.

Keywords

• Pesticide overuse
• Regulations
• Guidelines
• Vegetable farmers
• Compliance